Strategy
Avoid Companies Buying Their Own Stocks
Stock buybacks by U.S. companies has reached record levels. Flush with billions in cash many companies have figured out that the best way to spend those funds is to simply buy their own shares. The following chart from a recent Wall Street Journal article shows the gradual rise in share buybacks since the market lows [...]
Performance of Dividend Paying Stocks At Different Tax Rates
Last week I wrote an article discussing the dividend yields of U.S. and foreign stocks. To quote from that post: Though it is commendable that U.S. companies are increasing their dividend payouts, they still lag when compared to the payouts of foreign companies. Relative to their overseas peers, U.S. firms hold over one Trillion $ [...]
Another Take on Why Dividend Matters
Dividend yield should be one of the important factors when selecting a stock for investment. Dividend payments come out of a company’s earnings and is usually a strong barometer of a firm’s financial health. Unlike other metrics cash dividends are not susceptible to accounting or other manipulations. Hence consistent dividend payers and growers are excellent [...]
On the Dividend Yields of U.S. and Foreign Stocks
The New York Times published an interesting article this week discussing dividends paid by U.S. companies. The author Christine Hauser noted that the increased dividend payout last year is a sign of recovery. From Dividends Rise in Sign of Recovery: Companies listed in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index paid $240.6 billion in dividends in [...]
Impact of Inflation on Stock Returns
Investing in stocks produces the best return especially in the long-term. However when inflation is taken into account the return may not be the highest. Despite the best efforts of the U.S. Federal Reserve to combat inflation, it continues to grow year after. Inflation growth is particularly high in certain service industries such as health [...]
Why Bonds Are Important in a Portfolio
A well diversified portfolio should hold many types of asset classes such as stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, bank deposits, etc. Bonds are particularly important to a portfolio that is heavy in stocks. This is because bonds can help smoothen the portfolio performance when stocks become extremely volatile or perform poorly in year. The chart [...]
