During the week of December 10th two Dividend Aristocrats will go Ex-Dividend. They are Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and T Rowe Price Group Inc. (TROW).

Automatic Data Processing -Ex-Dividend 12/12/12

ADP provides outsourcing solutions. I am sure that most of us are aware of their outsourced payroll solution for businesses as well as the ADP Payroll report that is a leading economic indicator for employment. This company also offers a full range of HR outsourcing as well as traditional and web-based outsourcing solutions to employers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South America, Australia, and Asia.

This company operates in three divisions: Employer Services, Professional Employer Organization Services, and Dealer Services. Employer Services offers employment administration services to retail and merchandise firms including payroll, payroll tax filing, 401K administration, and other fringe benefits administration. The Professional Employer Organization Services division provides similar features, but focuses on professional services

Brown-Forman Co. (BF.B, BF.A) is the largest American owned alcoholic beverage producer in the world. They own 36 brands that operate in the champagne, liqueur, tequila, vodka, whiskey and wine segments of the industry.

Goldman Sachs has lowered this stock to a "sell" after they see evidence that de-stocking and a tough year-over-year comparison will contribute to a Q2 EPS miss. They see the stock settling down from the $69 it is trading at to $65. They also state that they do not see any long-term fundamental issues; the company has two short-term issues that it had to deal with during the second quarter--the de-stocking and year of year comparison. While that may be true, it is a mistake to sell now if you are a long-term income investor. Don't get me wrong; there is short term risk. If Brown-Forman misses its second

During the week of December 3rd eight Dividend Aristocrats will go Ex-Dividend. They are Brown-Forman Co (BF.A & BF.B), Stanley Black & Decker (SWK), Wal-Mart (WMT), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Genuine Parts Co (GPC), Leggett & Platt (LEG), VF Corp (VFC), and Becton, Dickinson & Co (BDX). In this article the first four will be reviewed. Part 2 will review the second group of four.

Brown-Forman Co.-Ex-Dividend 12/03/12

Brown-Forman is the company that owns Jack Daniels's brand alcoholic beverages as well as 35 other brands. They operate in the Champagne, liqueur, tequila, vodka, whiskey, and wine segments of the industry. BF.B was trading at $70.17 as of the close of trading Friday and is paying out 1.40% a year in dividends. BF.B has also raised their dividends from $0.155 a quarter per share in 2000 up to $0.255 a share each quarter starting in December of 2012. BF.B just declared a special

During the week of November 26th, five Dividend Aristocrats will go Ex-Dividend. They are McGraw-Hill (MHP), Dover Corp (DOV), Sigma-Aldrich Corp (SIAL), Coca-Cola (KO), and McDonald's (MCD).

McGraw-Hill -Ex-Dividend 11/26/12

MHP is a global information provider serving the financial services and education industries. MHP has four operating segments: S&P Ratings, S&P Capital IQ/Indices, Commodities & Commercial, and McGraw-Hill Education.

MHP was trading at $51.94 as of the close of trading Friday and is paying out 1.96% a year in dividends. MHP has also raised its dividends from $0.1175 a quarter per share in 2000 up to $0.255 a share each quarter and has split once during the same time period.

**MHP is currently splitting into two companies; financial services and education.**

Apple (AAPL) is having a great year and a great decade. Its products are everywhere. It continues to blow customers and analysts away with products and the income those products contribute to the bottom line. But to assume that Apple will be able to continue to do this year after year may be a mistake, and to not consider any potential problems the company may face would be another mistake. That is why it is important for investors in Apple to remain unemotionally attached to this company, and to sell when their original investment goals are achieved.

Apple has done so well in the last decade that investors must now consider if mean reversion is likely, and what business fundamentals might lead Apple to experience mean reversion. For those who are not familiar with the concept of mean reversion, it is the statistical probability that stocks will underperform market

With the price of most Master Limited Partnerships falling in the past few weeks the same amount as the Dow (both were down about 17% this month), this makes MLPs a great buying opportunity and a chance to pick up a 12.5-17% effective yield over the next year, if you get in soon. What’s more, MLPs have great potential to increase their dividend yield over time because of the types of businesses they are in (energy transport), and their fees are indexed to inflation. If MLPs had been priced this low on August 2nd (when I was conducting the research for that article) I would have included them for my “Ideal Dividend Portfolio” article. By including MLPs in the portfolio, diversification will be greatly increased, and risk will be reduced.

For those who have not heard of Master Limited Partnerships, let me give you a brief summary of what they

On Sunday and Monday of this week two articles were published that cast doubt on the value of actively managed mutual funds; the first was published in the New York Times while the second was published right here on Seeking Alpha. The New York Times article was written by Yale University’s Chief Investment Officer David Swenson. His article stated that mutual funds exist primarily so that their managers can extract exorbitant fees from their clients, and secondly to create wealth for investors. Dr. Swenson summed mutual fund companies up as “companies [that] spend lavishly on marketing campaigns, gather copious amounts of assets—and invest poorly”! He then went so far as to call the entire mutual fund industry “parasites”. The full article can be read here.

Russell F. Coleman was in such agreement with Dr. Swenson that after summarizing the opinion piece written by Dr. Swenson he

While in my final year of graduate school at DePaul University I was part of a small group of students picked to manage a portion of the University’s endowment. We did quite well: A12.9% gain with an alpha of 49 basis points. We beat our benchmark, the Russell 2000 Value index (IWN), and had a higher rate of return than the endowment’s professional management team.

There were very few hard and fast rules we had to follow, except one: "Buy in on November 1^st, and sell out the last trading day of April" - otherwise known as "sell in May and go away" - to students of behavioral finance.

After the volatility in the markets this week I decided to take a look at IWN, along with other major indices, to see how accurate "sell in May and go away" was in protecting investors this year.

The IWN,

Ever wonder why Apple (AAPL) does not pay a dividend? I sure have. The good news is, under the volatile market conditions we have experienced over the last year, there is a way to turn Apple’s stock into a “dividend” paying stock, producing a stream of income to be collected. All you have to do is buy when the stock price declines, and sell when the stock price rises—voila you have created a nice dividend stream. With the stock market gyrating like it has been, these “dividends” could really add up.

So how do we do it? By dedicating a small portion of our portfolio to buying and selling Apple stock as price fluctuates. Apple is a great stock for this sell-high, buy-low short term strategy. The price of Apple stock is high enough so that “normal” market swings (2-4%), along with market corrections work together with the increase in

I started this article as a piece advocating a long position for silver before the market open Monday. But with gold up over $70 an ounce and silver only up around 1% (during trading as of Monday, August 08, 2011 at 11 am EST), Monday’s market has only reinforced my opinion that the price of silver is ready to pop.

Since at least 1792, the ratio of silver to gold has been tracked by investors as well as central bankers. In 1792, the United States mandated by law that the ratio of silver to gold must be 15 ounces of silver to 1 ounce of gold (i.e. 15 ounces of silver has the buying power of one ounce of gold). Once the gold standard was abolished, the price of silver was allowed to fluctuate against gold. Historically, the ratio of gold to silver has floated been 15 and 40, excluding

I consider the day I retire from my nine-to-five job and live off of dividend checks the highest pinnacle of investing success. To that end, I am actively building an income portfolio that will eventually allow me to retire comfortably. For weeks I have been reading articles on Seeking Alpha trying to find ideas regarding the stocks that should comprise a solid investment portfolio, and I have been surprised by the core stocks recommended by other authors because of the low yields these stocks offer.

Most articles suggest investing in blue-chips with a history of raising dividends; however, I propose that the core of an investment portfolio should be comprised of the highest yielding dividend instruments. Let’s analyze Colgate-Palmolive (CL) as an example. This company has raised dividends for 47 consecutive years and now pays 2.32% annually, but this return does not even keep up with inflation during most years.

Kathryn F. Staley, author of The Finer Art of Short Selling, warns investors of stocks that have seen prices shoot way up, but sales and earnings that have not followed suit. One such stock is Valhi Inc (VHI). As of the close of the markets on Friday July 22nd, 2011, VHI was trading at $60.87, 87 times earnings, and 3.83 times sales. Since then, the stock has fallen to $54.74, but probably has much more room to fall.

This company was valued by the author two different ways. The first was using a holistic approach, the second was through in-depth analysis of its key financial documents. The holistic analysis was performed by breaking the company into pieces so that each piece could be looked at and potential catalysts for growth could be identified. The in-depth analysis of sales and cash from operations was performed using a two step process