With Apple, What A Difference A Week Makes [View article]
Within the last 5 months I have been in an Apple store several times to buy an IPAD and an IPOD Touch. Every time I was in there it was packed with people buying product. The numbers prove my experience was not an anomaly. Watched the Patriots game at friend's house. There were 5 kids there between the ages of 9 and 12. All 5 had an IPOD Touch they were playing on. Kids at my son's school have an IPOD Touch if their parents can afford it. The entire class is provided with IPOD's to use at school. Of the adults I know that have smart phones about half have an IPHONE. Yep, Apple is falling apart as a company.
The Network Effect: Why Apple's iOS Will Win The Platform War Over Google's Android [View article]
For x-mas my 10 year old got an iPod touch. Seems many of his friends either already had one or got one for x-mas or are asking for one for a birthday. I have an iPad and two MacBooks are in the household. They all work seamlessly together. Two itunes accounts for my wife and I. Call us elitist if you want, but ignore the reasons why we have all apple products in the household and our child asked for a ipod touch for x-mas at your peril.
I look at the commercials for other smart phones and they seem to be aimed directly at the youth market of iphone owners. Doesn't appear to be working from my standpoint. Wanta bet what kind of smart phone my child will want when that day comes?
So it's a bunch of economist with their metrics, a group that can't agree on anything, against people that actually run businesses like Warren Buffett who states in his annual letter that the vast majority of Berkshire's businesses did better in 2011 and will continue to provide higher profits in 2012.!
Dividends: A Case of Behavioral Heuristics? [View article]
Heuristics are simply cognitive sort cuts that we use to get through everyday life. I don't know a single dividend producing stock investor that uses dividend yield alone [or as a shortcut]. We all look at a variety of metrics to make our buy decisions.
"(I fear that modern finance—particularly as interpreted by the marketers—has pushed us in the opposite direction, misleading us to believe that we are improperly invested, unless we are exposed to all manner of asset classes, which we know little about—but a marketer is eager to sell us.)" This statement is worthy of a post unlike using heuristic's in the wrong context. I would be interested in you developing the above quote fully!
Master Limited Partnerships And Your IRA [View article]
Whether there is a glut or not has little to do with growth rates of energy MLPs. Most of them transport oil products around the country through pipelines and store at onshore facilities before oil is sent to refineries. So the growth of the economy is the main driver not the total amount of reserves. Also, since much of the new oil discoveries are far from the refineries oil will need to be taken to the refineries and then sent around the country indicating more transportation costs going to the MLPs.
Is Yield On Cost Really Important To Dividend Investors? [View article]
Interesting comments. Maybe I am simple-minded but it seems to me that the answer is pretty simple. YOC tells you how well you DID. What to do in the future is more about dividend increases. For that I track dividend increases for the last 3-5-10 years. When a stock I own starts to trend down on percentage dividend increase I keep a close eye on it. When it no longer can compete with dividend increases from other companies then its time to sell. Maybe because I only own a handful or less of stocks it makes it a simple way to understand it. I always have a list of 3-7 stocks that I can use as replacements for a stock that stops producing the dividend increases it has in the past. I also own a growth stock and a high risk/high reward stock. Also invest in other ideas and assets beyond stocks for diversification. Meanwhile I currently only own two stocks for dividend purposes but I bought wisely because the YOC is 13.5% and 11.1%.
One Warren Buffett Lesson I Hope I Never Forget [View article]
I always think it is funny when people quote Buffett and then ignore Berkshire Hathaway as an investment. Buffett is floating in cash, which he is putting to work by buying companies, stock of other good companies and even BRK. In short this is the time period Buffett shines.
Here's something we're not hearing the Wall Street protesters complain about while they chat on their iPhones and groove to their iTunes: Steve Jobs' estate, estimated at $7B, probably won't owe a dime of income tax. For estate planners, it’s all in a day’s work. [View news story]
Isn't he married???? Estate taxes don't go into effect until his wife dies.
Most Of Our Problem, Still, Is That We Have A Dead Battery: Felix Salmon Is Wrong Edition [View article]
Fact: Literacy rates have fallen since compulsory education was instituted in the 1920s. Fact: Average SAT scores peaked in the 1970s and have been dropping ever since. Fact: Every decade some folks decide that the current young are not up to the standards of those folks memories. Fact: Cyclical employment issues have been happening since folks moved from the farm to the cities in the 19th century. Fact: Both the cure and the disease is the same; more capitalism. [Probably need a good liberal arts education to figure that one out!] Fact: Folks with good undergraduate liberal arts education score higher on all professional testing. Fact: Test taking has no bearing on work competency.
Dividend Growth And Income Investing Vs. Total Return: A Battle For The Mind [View article]
Yes. You have written a great post about why dividend growth investing is so important to the average retail investor; human psychology. Watching increasing dividends instead of dropping prices is the antidote to the buy high/sell low that the majority participate in.
Dividends Matter a Lot, But Not More Than Proper Diversification [View article]
Roger, if a large multi-national company that has been paying increasing dividends for more than 20 year goes belly-up in so little time than it takes me to notice the issue, then it would provide a severe loss to my income. But can you name me a company of that stature that has imploded in short time and not recovered?
Dividends Matter a Lot, But Not More Than Proper Diversification [View article]
poortorich is correct IMHO. However, one other advantage of owning a handful of stocks versus 20 or more is that an individual investor can keep a close eye on those stocks without having to invest a lot of time in it. Not that the original post is wrong advice, just that he [like everyone] has blind spots and biases. Buffett has indeed used a concentrated portfolio in the past and suggests it is a winning strategy in some of his writings. Buffett has also suggested that for most people owning an index fund is the way to go. But for me that is buying something most people have no hope of truly understanding all the moving parts [stocks in the index] as well as other issues in the funds. Better to own companies you can understand and follow closely!
By the way it would help your writings if you named a couple of companies that passed all those dividend screens and failed or dropped their dividends during the recession to provide context to your contentions.
As an investor for over 11 years in Berkshire and one that has over the last few years started a growing dividend portfolio I follow some simple rules. Look at what strategies has worked in the past and assume it will work in the future until proven otherwise. Buying companies that have paid increasing dividends has worked well for a long time. Buffett has doubled the S & P 500 for almost every time period you can create. Nothing has changed lately for either of those two.
Sometimes folks use their intelligence to dig way too deep into investing. Although smartly written the real world has proven this author's ideas wrong. As Buffett has said, ...If calculus was needed to be a good investor, I would have to go back to delivering newspapers....
With Apple, What A Difference A Week Makes [View article]
Yep, Apple is falling apart as a company.
The Network Effect: Why Apple's iOS Will Win The Platform War Over Google's Android [View article]
I look at the commercials for other smart phones and they seem to be aimed directly at the youth market of iphone owners. Doesn't appear to be working from my standpoint. Wanta bet what kind of smart phone my child will want when that day comes?
Buffett Still Runs A Very Concentrated Portfolio [View article]
ECRI Reaffirms Recession Call [View article]
Dividends: A Case of Behavioral Heuristics? [View article]
"(I fear that modern finance—particularly as interpreted by the marketers—has pushed us in the opposite direction, misleading us to believe that we are improperly invested, unless we are exposed to all manner of asset classes, which we know little about—but a marketer is eager to sell us.)"
This statement is worthy of a post unlike using heuristic's in the wrong context. I would be interested in you developing the above quote fully!
Master Limited Partnerships And Your IRA [View article]
Is Yield On Cost Really Important To Dividend Investors? [View article]
One Warren Buffett Lesson I Hope I Never Forget [View article]
Here's something we're not hearing the Wall Street protesters complain about while they chat on their iPhones and groove to their iTunes: Steve Jobs' estate, estimated at $7B, probably won't owe a dime of income tax. For estate planners, it’s all in a day’s work. [View news story]
Estate taxes don't go into effect until his wife dies.
Most Of Our Problem, Still, Is That We Have A Dead Battery: Felix Salmon Is Wrong Edition [View article]
Fact: Average SAT scores peaked in the 1970s and have been dropping ever since.
Fact: Every decade some folks decide that the current young are not up to the standards of those folks memories.
Fact: Cyclical employment issues have been happening since folks moved from the farm to the cities in the 19th century.
Fact: Both the cure and the disease is the same; more capitalism. [Probably need a good liberal arts education to figure that one out!]
Fact: Folks with good undergraduate liberal arts education score higher on all professional testing.
Fact: Test taking has no bearing on work competency.
Have a great day.
Dividend Growth And Income Investing Vs. Total Return: A Battle For The Mind [View article]
Dividends Matter a Lot, But Not More Than Proper Diversification [View article]
Dividends Matter a Lot, But Not More Than Proper Diversification [View article]
Buffett has indeed used a concentrated portfolio in the past and suggests it is a winning strategy in some of his writings.
Buffett has also suggested that for most people owning an index fund is the way to go. But for me that is buying something most people have no hope of truly understanding all the moving parts [stocks in the index] as well as other issues in the funds. Better to own companies you can understand and follow closely!
By the way it would help your writings if you named a couple of companies that passed all those dividend screens and failed or dropped their dividends during the recession to provide context to your contentions.
Understanding Compounding: Berkshire's Not-So-Hidden Dividend Contrarian Secret [View article]
In fact he got downgraded because he used so much of his cash.
Understanding Compounding: Berkshire's Not-So-Hidden Dividend Contrarian Secret [View article]
Sometimes folks use their intelligence to dig way too deep into investing. Although smartly written the real world has proven this author's ideas wrong.
As Buffett has said, ...If calculus was needed to be a good investor, I would have to go back to delivering newspapers....