With the brutal clobbering Apple (AAPL) has experienced recently, dipping below $500/share for the first time in almost a year this week, many market pundits are now calling the silver lining to the carnage: Apple's steep price decline has left its dividend yield at an attractive 2%. Parsimony Investment Research goes even further, identifying the dividend as "the most compelling reason to buy Apple right now." It's easy to see the appeal that a stock like Apple might have for dividend investors: at 2%, the yield just makes the cutoff for many investors' portfolios, and the dividend is funded by a low payout ratio of less than 25%, which means it has a lot of room to grow. Plus you get to own one of the most consistent long-term winners in the stock market, even after taking recent setbacks into consideration - hell, many dividend funds were secretly buying

After Tim Cook's recent meeting with the chairman of China Mobile (CHL), the rumor mills are hot with speculation that Apple (AAPL) is finally preparing to launch a subsidized iPhone on China's largest wireless network. The subsidy model has been one of the most important growth drivers for Apple here in the U.S., but I've never been entirely comfortable with the notion that the story will play out the same way in China. The Chinese consumer has traditionally been much more fiscally conservative than his American counterpart, which doesn't mesh well with the subsidy model since subsidies don't actually save the consumer any money over the long run.

The seemingly great deal represented by the subsidized smartphone is just an illusion -- even though the consumer snags a cheaper phone up front, he eventually makes up the difference by locking himself into an expensive multi-year contract. Due to the

In an industry plagued with aggressive promotional wars, price-sensitive consumers, and until recently, soaring material costs, Buckle (BKE) stands alone as a rose amidst weeds. When I'm on the hunt for a new portfolio addition, I love finding a company with great financials that also makes a product I use in my everyday life, and therefore understand from a consumer's perspective. Yes, I happen to be a big fan of Peter Lynch as well. I don't know how fashion-conscious Mr. Lynch was, but if he happened to suddenly wake up one morning in a 21 year old's body, but armed with all of his investment experience, the first thing he'd do would probably be to buy shares in Buckle.

In the original draft of this article, I devoted the next few paragraphs to discussing Buckle's amazing fundamentals, but in the end, I decided to toss it all out. Let's face

A few months ago, the impending release of Activision-Blizzard's (ATVI) anticipated mega-hit Diablo 3 had both the gaming and investor communities buzzing with excitement. Many pundits were calling Activision a buy before the game's release day, no doubt envisioning record breaking sales, glowing reviews, and a soaring stock price. Well, the first one happened: Diablo 3 absolutely smashed PC sales records with 3 million sold the first 24 hours and 6 million the first week. Unfortunately, while the game received decent critic reviews, user reviews were a complete bomb, with the game averaging a total of 3.8/10 on Metacritic. Shareholders didn't make out any better: on release day May 15, ATVI's stock price was $12.78/share. Last Friday, it closed at $11.64. During the same time period, the S&P rose more than 5%.

What went wrong? While Metacritic's user composite is notoriously unreliable, with many otherwise solid

You know you've got market power when even society's lawless elements are following your playbook. Apple (AAPL) products have become so popular, so in demand, and so integrated into mainstream culture that even software pirates are increasingly beginning to adapt to its draconian standards. One of the quirks of the iOS mobile devices has always been that they can only play a limited selection of video formats. DivX, the codec of choice for video pirates, does not happen to be one of them. You don't hear about this much in the media because it hasn't really mattered here in the good ole' US of A, where most of us still believe in the archaic idea that you should pay for the products you use.

In an article I wrote a couple of months ago about dividend investing, SA regular richjoy403 asked me to offer a little more insight into my own stockpicking strategies. I promised him that I would, though being the life long procrastinator that I am, it took eight weeks before I finally churned out a follow up article. Still, I've finally managed to whip one up - so this one's for you, Rich!

Let's take a step back for a second. One trait that I've noticed that's almost universally shared amongst dividend investors is a laser beam focus on rising dividends. This, of course, makes perfect sense: if your primary investment goal is to generate an income stream that grows at a rate which exceeds inflation every year, it would be counterproductive to invest in companies that freeze or cut their dividends. However, there are many companies out there

After months of bad press, Apple (AAPL) and Chinese contract supplier Foxconn have finally reached an agreement to improve working conditions for the thousands of laborers toiling in Foxconn's manufacturing plants. While many view this decision as a deft public relations move by CEO Tim Cook, and it is, investors should not be fooled: this play was not solely about appeasing the public. Like many of Apple's business maneuvers, this move operates on multiple levels. No doubt it will give Apple some street cred as a socially responsible company both at home and abroad, but just as importantly, it has struck a blow at the hearts and income statements of some of Apple's biggest competitors.

The media always zeroes in on the biggest targets when it's searching for its next hard-hitting story, and with all the coverage that Apple has been receiving regarding this latest scandal, it's

Last September, during the depths of the panic-inducing correction that cannibalized all the gains the stock market made in the first half of the year, I published an article about a newly minted portfolio I assembled after snapping up a number of bargain equities. I've always believed that anyone who dispenses investment advice, which by definition encompasses all Seeking Alpha authors including myself, should be willing to put their money where their mouth is. The first question to ask your investment advisor should always be: "What do you own in your own portfolio?" Always be wary of anyone pitching a stock that they're not holding in significant quantities themselves.

The $20,000 portfolio isn't a virtual portfolio - every position was purchased with cold, hard cash. It's a 100% equity, highly concentrated portfolio filled with the five highest conviction stock picks I had at the time. I believed in

By July of this year, Apple (AAPL) will officially be a dividend stock. This development is no surprise for the market. Even though many of Apple's most zealous fans have continued to hold out against the possibility of a dividend, even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, anyone who's been paying attention has seen the signs coming a long time ago. What may have actually taken investors off-guard is that Apple's dividend is so conservative: at $2.65/share per quarter, that's only a yield of 1.8%, well below consensus estimates of 2-3%. All in all, it was a rather anticlimactic announcement given the enormous amount of build up in the recent months, culminating in a two month run of over 40% in the stock price.

However, I would argue that such a small, conservative step is to be expected from Apple's management. CEO Tim Cook has

I had the pleasure of reading fellow contributor and dividend investing guru David Van Knapp's article yesterday, "5 More Myths About Dividend Growth Investing." While the article itself was a worthwhile read, which is true to form for anything David publishes, the thing I found most interesting was the heated debate in the comments section about the merits of a popular, but controversial metric in the dividend growth community: yield-on-cost. This metric is frequently used by dividend investors, but critics argue that the number itself is useless at best, and harmful at worst. According to these detractors, YOC prevents investors from making sound investment decisions by creating an irrational attachment to previous winners.

They're absolutely right and absolutely wrong. They're right in the sense that a buy/sell decision should never be influenced by YOC. After all, you don't succeed in investing by chasing money that has already

One of Charlie Munger's mental models is to always analyze a problem by inverting it. When it comes to stocks, this means looking for reasons why you shouldn't invest in your favorite equities instead of seeking validation from others about what a great investment you made. Since Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) is one of my largest holdings, I make sure to follow Charlie's advice and periodically examine the company from a critical perspective. This is especially relevant today, given that Berkshire's share price hasn't gone anywhere in the past five years. This doesn't matter to me since my position is a relatively recent one, but it's always good to try to figure out if the market knows something that you don't.

One idea that struck me recently is that ever since the Bush capital gains tax cuts were passed, Berkshire immediately became a less attractive investment opportunity for one reason:

The implosion of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) last night after Starbucks (SBUX) announced its new Verismo machine has shareholders scrambling. But within every setback lies an opportunity to learn from it, so let's take a step back and examine this development a little more closely.

What happened to Green Mountain is a prime example of capitalism at its most ruthless hour. The company's fall from grace illustrates one of the biggest dangers of investing in blazing hot momentum stocks that are being carried by a single popular product: eventually, other companies are going to join the party, and when they do, you better make sure you have what it takes to defend your economic castle.

One company that can learn from all this is SodaStream (SODA), another momo stock that has been clobbered over the past few months. The parallels between GMCR and SODA are uncanny. They both

In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable moats. -- Warren Buffett

Legendary investor Warren Buffett became the richest man in the world by investing in great businesses. When he's on the prowl for his next acquisition, Buffett loves nothing more than to find a business with a wide moat. A moat, as defined by Buffett, is a sustainable competitive advantage possessed by a business that defends it from assault by its competitors. A moat allows a business to protect its economic castle not only from smaller competitors, but also from larger ones with much more resources. Furthermore, a moat can't be easily copied - that's why it's a sustainable competitive advantage.

There are many companies with enormous moats in today's market. Sirius XM (SIRI) is the only company in the country to offer premium quality satellite radio to drivers, which makes its name synonymous with

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) released fourth quarter earnings results before the bell this morning, and as of this writing, shares are up over 6% at the open. While it wasn't quite a blowout quarter, there was a lot for investors to like in the report. Here are some of the high notes in the press release:

• Adjusted earnings per share came in at the high end of guidance, clocking in at $0.35. This is after backing out one time charges related to store impairment write-downs for aerie and executive transition costs due to CEO James O'Donnell's retirement.

• Comparable store sales increased 10% year over year, with an overall increase of 14% in total sales. However, gross margins fell from 39.4% to 34.1% due to higher product costs and increased markdowns.

• The first quarter of this fiscal year is off to a running start, with positive comps coming in for

I've been hearing a lot of arguments being tossed around about how dividend stocks are primarily the domain of passive/uneducated investors or weak companies, so I thought I'd write down some of my own thoughts on this issue. I understand where the anti-dividend crowd is coming from: I used to be one of them. A long time ago, I believed that dividend companies were for the risk-averse and elderly. Agile investors with a healthy appetite for volatility could crush the market only by aligning their fortunes with young companies growing like weeds, with the wind at their back and their best days still ahead. I wrote off dividend-paying companies as the stuffy old dinosaurs of the stock market. They were ancient, and gigantic by virtue of their age, but you're not going to get anywhere fast by riding on the back of one. I preferred to invest in cutting edge

Warren Buffett has drawn a lot of fire for his argument that America's richest investors should be required to pay more taxes. For example, in this Motley Fool article published yesterday, complete with the sensationalist headline "Should Buffett Just Shut Up?," New Jersey governor Chris Christie was reported to have said that if Buffett loves the US government so much, he should just write a check to the Treasury.

I've heard this line thrown around so much that by this point, it's a completely played-out cliche. Sorry, guys, but if you think Buffett can don his superhero tights and solve America's debt problem on his own by using his super investing powers and cutting a check, or that he should even try, you're completely missing the point. That means you, Mr. Christie.

Buffett has been criticized for being a hypocrite because, despite his controversial tax proposal, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)

Apple (AAPL) hasn't been acting like itself lately. The stock has been on a tear for the last couple of weeks, handily besting the S&P 500 almost every single trading day. This by itself isn't strange - Apple's old hands are used to consistent outperformance by now. What is strange is that this large updraft is coming on the heels of the company's latest earnings release, which already propelled the stock up over 6% on the day of the announcement.

Apple's movement around earnings day has been somewhat predictable in the past. The stock would usually begin a slow crawl upwards shortly before earnings as the market begins to accumulate shares in anticipation of estimate-beating numbers. Apple would then proceed to report another quarter of blockbuster results, which would ignite the stock's jet pack and send it shooting up the same day, with the momentum carrying it a bit further

Warren Buffett believes that most investors, including many professional money managers, would be better served investing in a low cost index fund instead of an actively selected portfolio of individual stocks. The statistics certainly seem to support Buffett's view. Almost every study on the subject conducted since the 1960s concluded that the majority of mutual fund managers continue to underperform their benchmarks. I'll leave the explanations of this curious phenomenon to the experts, but there's no debating that the question "Can I beat an index fund?" is one that every serious investor must ask himself. If you can't, then you might as well save yourself a lot of time and energy and put your money into a group of low expense index or sector funds like the iShares Russell 2000 (IWM), the SPDR Financial Select (XLF), or, of course, the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).

There's just one problem.

After its latest earnings release, Apple (AAPL), one of the hottest growth stories on Wall Street, is now officially priced as a zero growth stock. To illustrate why, we have to first look at how to price a zero growth company in the first place. Get ready to get your hands dirty, because we're about to dig into some entry level financial theory.

To begin, we use the average annual return of the US stock market over the past decade to establish an expected rate of return for our investment. The CAGR of the S&P 500 over the last one hundred years is roughly 10%, so that will be our starting point. A fairly priced stock will return 10% a year to investors - no more, no less.

Now the question becomes, at what valuation will our hypothetical zero growth company return 10%? A company with no growth prospects will

With Steve Jobs gone, many are wondering whether Apple (AAPL) will be able to maintain its momentum without its iconic leader at the helm. Some look at Apple's position today and find eerie parallels to where rival Microsoft (MSFT) stood ten years ago when founder Bill Gates handed the reins over to current CEO Steve Ballmer. Microsoft is the company that many people point to when they're searching for an example of a tech giant that has lost its innovative edge. Since the announcement of Jobs's passing earlier this month, countless headlines have sprung up predicting that Apple investors are destined to suffer the same fate as Microsoft investors, who've seen their stock flounder and go nowhere since Gates's departure.

However, this is a wholly unfair comparison, and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Apple can innovate on the same scale that it once did