Tag: Personal Investing

Evaluating Stocks Part VII: Become An Aristocrat

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit may enslave us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

In response to the last post or two, people wanted to see the math behind “The Magic of Dividend Investing”, so let me talk to you in two parts about that.

The first is the one we will focus on for today.

Dividend Aristocrat Investing (remember what they are?—companies who have increased their dividends for 25-49 consecutive years, but are only in the S&P 500 as opposed to Dividend Champions who have the same dividend history as Dividend Aristocrats, but are not necessarily in the S&P 500—so there are 50 Dividend Aristocrats and 115 DIvidend Champions for 2018)     has two things of note from a total return standpoint.

The first is that the total return for Dividend Aristocrat investing is superior to the total returns for the S&P 500 (with all dividends reinvested into the companies that generated the dividends in the first place) in the past 5, 10, 15, and even 20 years.

Here are the average annual total returns as of September 2016:

Index Total return – 2016 through Sept. 2 Average total return – 3 years Average total return – 5 years Average total return – 10 years Average total return – 15 years Average total return – 20 years
S&P Dividend Aristocrats 14.1% 14.7% 17.9% 10.7% 10.1% 11.2%
S&P 500 8.3% 12.5% 15.6% 7.5% 6.6% 8.2%
Source: FactSet

If you don’t believe three percent better returns average over two decades isn’t terribly impressive, consider this article (which is a great read from 2016 which is also where the above chart was “borrowed”—pay attention to the graphs showing you the difference in the returns over time for $10,000 investment and imagine that that’s only for a one time $10,000 investment and not for yearly investment as any of you would be doing—right? Right?!?) as well as the following thought experiment.

Imagine getting 3% higher salary every year for twenty years than you usually would for DOING THE EXACT SAME WORK! Tell me that isn’t a significant return then. If you’re thinking that 3% a year more in your investments is a pittance, then you should gladly turn down the 3% bump up in pay because it won’t amount to anything. You can’t say the former and then argue against the latter.

One problem however…this leaves you with investing up to 50 different companies however. Several approaches can tackle this problem.

  1. Invest in each company with two percent of your total investment in stocks (not how much your total overall investment in all equities is) each year CON: It’s complex and requires many transactions with each one creating a fee each time thus reducing your total returns over time. Also, you have to keep paying attention to when a company drops off the list (pretty big news in the investing world) and when a new one gets added on. PRO: You get all the companies’ dividends and stock price appreciation the whole time you’re investing in them without fail.
  2. Invest in your favorite companies within the 50 Dividend Aristocrats by feel, by analysis, by lowest PE ratio, by the advice of your financial advisor, etc. CON: You don’t get all the benefits of dividends and stock price appreciation of all the companies, just the ones you’re invested in. Your total returns may be worse than the overall Dividend Aristocrats as your selections may underperform the others. This may cause you to drop these and pick up others…which can then underperform the following year. And so on and so forth… PRO: Your selections could outperform the overall Dividend Aristocrats. Even underperforming the overall Dividend Aristocrats, these selections may have total returns that still are greater than the S&P 500 which is, after all, the whole goal here. A small basket of stocks (ten perhaps) rather than 50 of them will be a lot less to manage, follow, and cost less in transactions.   
  3. There is an ETF that does all the work for you by investing in all of the Dividend Aristocrats (though it modifies the dividend aristocrat definition, reducing the minimum standard to 20 years), tracks them, pulls out of a company if it falls off the Dividend Aristocrat list, and invests in a new one if it joins the list. CON: There is an expense ratio connected to it and the returns are lower than doing all 50 stocks yourself though its total return may still exceed S&P 500. PRO: All the work is done for you for a small expense ratio (0.35%) with far less transaction costs than the DIY approach to Dividend Aristocrat investing. Since the ETF began in 2006, it has nearly tripled in value ( a return of over (5 a year if you remember the rule of 114—and if you don’t, you’re a jerk since I posted about this in the past) and then add in the dividends (2.48%) to really juice the returns.  
  4. You could do a hybrid of the above. 50 stocks is a lot to own, but not necessarily over 30-50 years of investing. Buy one a week and set up a DRIP and then you have all of them in a year and then add to them as you see fit/as your budget allows. The same could be done monthly thus allowing you to get all fifty within just over four years. Again, the beauty here is that once you’re in, the dividends start rolling in and increase your your stake in said companies increasing your next set of dividends in a glorious upward spiral of wealth.
  5. If you want no fuss no muss, then the ETF is the way to go. If you enjoy the challenge of owning a large panel of stocks for even a smaller basket, then go for it.

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…

Evaluating Stocks Part VI: The Magic of Dividend Growth Investing

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit may enslave us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!!!

I’m thankful for many things, but as far as this blog…I’m thankful for all the subscribers, viewers, and support I’ve received over the past year. I’m truly blessed, honored, and incredibly grateful.

I’m no blind follower of popular will, but I do pay attention when multiple people ask the same question and others are critical of my investing strategy (which has certainly done well for me, but is always worth re-examining).

The question…uh…er…in question is the following:

Why is individual stock investing as desirable/more desirable as index fund investing?

Related to that question is if individual stock investing is worth the extra work (if you want to call it that) and even risk compared to index funds.

To answer that question, I need to clarify essentially what my investing strategy has been in a chronological sense.

  1. Index Funds
  2. Mutual Funds
  3. Dividend Growth Investing
  4. Growth Stocks Buttressed By Secular Trends
  5. Alternative Investments (eg, real estate, franchises, businesses, etc.)

I started investing early and often thanks to my parents (Thanks Mom and Dad!! Love you guys and can never thank you enough for the amazing life you’ve given me) and once I built up a critical mass (a subjective measure to be sure) of index funds and mutual funds, I then moved down that list one by one—only moving to the next one after reaching what I believed to be critical mass in terms of the amount of money invested in the current category. As you can see, each category carries with it more work and more risk as well. We can and will get into these categories one by one over the coming weeks and months.

So…after that brief interlude and window into my investing life, let’s get into individual stock investing. As you can see from above, the first grouping of individual stocks, I seek stocks with dividends where the company consistently increases the dividends year after year. This selects out many stocks—non-dividend payers, companies paying out dividends just recently (for me, that’s 25 years or less), companies with longer term dividends, but are ones that have neither increased the dividends or even worse dropped their dividends over time, etc.

So, in other words, the companies I am seeking are large companies with a good easily understood business model and a long history of strong profits with consistent dividends that are steadily increased year after year regardless of the broader economy or gyrations of the stock market.

These types of companies are relatively rare when considering that there are over 17,000 publicly traded companies and there are less than a few hundred companies that fit the bill. The good thing is that there are far more companies like this than any average Joe and Jill Investor would ever put their money into.

These are so valued, desired, and tracked enough that they have acquired names for themselves.

Dividend Challengers: companies who have increased their dividends for 5-9 consecutive years

Dividend Achievers: companies in the S&P 500 who have increased their dividends for 10-24   consecutive years

Dividend Contenders: Same as the above, but not only in the S&P 500

Dividend Champions: companies who have increased their dividends for 25-49 consecutive years

Dividend Aristocrats: Same as above, but all the companies are only in the S&P 500

Dividend Kings: companies who have increased their dividends for at least 50 consecutive years

Most people stick to one or other (S&P 500 or S&P 500+ all other stocks of any kind) classification system. Of note, the “dividend kings” is not a category that is universally accepted and only used by some (though everyone should recognize what its definition is when everyone it is thrown around).

So, these lists are not static obviously. The best companies move from one list up towards another once they have achieved ten, 25, or even 50 consecutive years of dividend increases. The less fortunate companies fall off the list after one year of not increasing their dividend. REMEMBER THIS: It’s not missing a dividend payout that gets you scratched off the list; it’s simply not increasing the dividend from the prior year that gets your company bumped off the list.

Take the example of Johnson Controls which paid out higher and higher dividends for 31 consecutive years from 1985-2016 until they could no longer increase it. They never stopped paying the dividend and even increased its dividend in subsequent years. However, just for missing one year out of the past 33 years, Johnson Controls went from being a Dividend Champion and eventually on its way to becoming a Dividend King to not even being a Dividend Achiever currently.

One missed dividend payment increase (even if you still pay out a dividend that year in question)…no matter for whatever reason…and you’re out.

Brutally unforgiving system…which is good for us as investors.

There are 25 Dividend Kings, 50 Dividend Aristocrats, 115 Dividend Champions, 220 Dividend Contenders, and 265 Dividend Achievers. Dividend Challengers are harder to nail down as there are approximately 150 companies, but more are being added before the end of this year assuming the dividend increase(s) occur.

Now that we have categorized the different dividend growth stocks, let’s delve into the whys of dividend growth investing versus index fund investing alone…next time.

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Eat heartily and have a great holiday!

Until next time…

Evaluating Stocks Part V: An Explanation of the Heretofore and Whatnot…Especially The Whatnot

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit enslaves us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

I’ll try to make this a shorter post after going extra long in the last post. I’ve been flooded with questions and some gentle criticisms (and some not-so-gentle yelling ALL CAPS INTERNET STYLE!!!!) about my financial chicanery at the end of my last post.

Essentially, all of it boiled down to the following question: Why pick Microsoft with a PE ratio of 51.01 with a dividend when you can get the same dividend yield at a PE ratio of 19.87 with Apple?

First, the disclaimers…

I am not advising anyone what to do for themselves, but rather what someone with my risk tolerance (high), debt burden (low), and critical mass of core holdings (my index funds and Dividend Champions) MIGHT DO. [In full disclosure, I bought Microsoft decades ago and have held it since even as “investment experts” bashed the company and said it should be dumped despite its steady rise in dividend and, of course, now it’s tripled its stock price over the past five years.Way to go, guys. Score another one for the “experts.”]

I’m not even advising for you to pick stocks if that is out of your comfort zone. (Though I firmly hold the position you should at least understand this process even if you don’t pick stocks yourself as either your financial advisor and/or mutual funds are doing it in your name.)

As Chuck Klosterman would often say, ANYWAY…

The rationale behind buying Microsoft at a higher PE ratio for the same dividend yield (after droning on about using the PE ratio as a leading metric of value) has to do with not its growth (its PEG ratio—remember what that is?—is 2.27 while Apple’s PEG ratio is 0.91 and Facebook has a PEG ratio of 0.93), but rather the other type of investing that has always intrigued me. If you enjoy investing in individual stocks (which I do immensely) in hopes to “beat the market”, it’s intriguing to take an educated guess on what secular trends will elevate which companies. For example, who will win the cloud computing wars? Well, I’m certainly smart enough to know, but I am smart enough know how to read the best paper in the world for investors, the Wall Street Journal.

A multibillion dollar company with over 30 years being publicly traded with dividends since 2003 and increasing that dividend since 2012 with a PE ratio no more than twice the sector average (and a PEG ratio no more than twice the sector average) PLUS massively increasing revenues in a whole new market space with only one other major competitor (Hello, Amazon!) so far.  

Sign me up for a (currently) well run company with a growing dividend and riding a secular trend with massive implications for the future any time.

Along with that, the money that was put in was not the most ($2,500 each for Microsoft and Facebook versus $5,000 for Apple) and would still allow to capture the advantages of Microsoft particularly since it will dollar cost average into more and more shares of a great company (provided you set up a DRIP from the start) with increasing shares leading to increasing dividend payouts leading to even a further increase in shares in a glorious upward spiral (I guess I am a bit of an investing evangelist).    

Again, that’s what I’d do with where I am at in my investing life and with my risk tolerance (and my love for stock picking and seeing if I got a good deal and a great investment years later). THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD DO THIS FOR YOURSELF AND/OR YOUR FAMILY.

That is all.   

I hope that helps…even and especially for your haters out there.

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…

Evaluating Stocks, Part IV: MSFT vs AAPL vs FB: Showdown at the Hope Returns Are Better than OK Corral

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit enslaves us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

 

Where we last left off, we discovered the range of PE ratios between some famous tech stocks (Microsoft/MSFT=51.01, Apple/AAPL=19.87, Facebook/FB=23.84) and will use that metric to determine which to purchase in a hypothetical $10,000 purchase. (Just like med school, let me set up a hypothetical that is unlike real life and make you stick to it. In this case, that means all $10,000 must go into only one stock rather than splitting it up into two or even all three companies.)

Before we dive into the comparison analysis, let’s review the PE ratio as a number and what it means. So, as you (hopefully) saw from last time, the PE ratio of the S&P 500 has essentially been between 15-25 for the past 15 years or so (with the major exception being in 2009 as noted last time). Thus, our evaluation has been pegged to PE ratios in this range.

***Note that in all future posts, if I refer to a low PE ratio company, it’s below this range (or at the lower end of this range) or a high PE ratio company would have one greater than 25.***

A low PE ratio company is considered “cheaper” regardless of its actual stock price and how much you have to pay for the same number of shares as a company with a higher PE ratio. This is part and parcel of the school of thought known as “value investing” (though they are other metrics used to determine what is a value purchase among stocks) which is what made this guy rich and famous.

A high PE ratio isn’t necessarily a bad company however. A high PE ratio for a company means that the stock price is high when earnings are relatively low.

Sarcastic Reader: Why in the world would that be? Wouldn’t the stock price be low if the earnings are low?

Dr. Scared: This is it! This is how they screw you!!

Dr. Unwise: Low earnings, but a high stock price? That makes no sense at all!  

A high PE ratio means that analysts/institutional investors (maybe even retail investors) expect earnings to take off in the near future (a totally and purposefully arbitrary and vague time period) based on…something…like a new product launch, a new division, a new acquisition, etc. How much that is worth may be subjective and it is up to you as in individual investor to make that call particularly if the PE ratio in question is multiples of that of the S&P 500.

Keeping all that in mind, let’s do some comparison shopping.

From purely a PE ratio, the “cheapest” company is good old Apple with Facebook as a close second and Microsoft a distant third.

Sarcastic Reader: So Apple is the best one to get right?

Dr. Unwise: I feel like there’s a catch here somewhere.

Dr. Scared: This is it! This is how…Aah, you guys know where I’m at with all of this…

PWT: Yes. Apple is the best company to buy into from a purely a PE ratio. There is no doubt about it. But, there’s something else—if not other things—to consider…

Sarcastic Reader: Oh boy, Here we go…

One other thing you need to consider when thinking of buying a stock is if it pays a dividend and what is the company’s dividend history if it does pay one. Facebook does not pay any dividend. Both Apple and Microsoft do pay dividends. Microsoft paid 0.42 per share of stock you own and will pay $0.46 per share starting in November which is a dividend yield of 1.7%. (Think of dividend yield as interest gained on the money you put into that particular company. That plus how much the stock price goes up [AKA capital appreciation] along with how much the company keeps increasing the dividend payout {if they do at all} will determine how well you do with that individual company.) Microsoft, for example, began paying out dividends in 20003 and has steadily increased its dividend every year since 2009 from 13 cents/share to 46 cents/share starting next month.

Apple, on the other hand, pays 73 cents/share with a dividend yield of 1.4%. Apple has increased its dividend every year since it re-started one in 2102. It had a dividend in 1988-1995 and none before that or since then until 2012.   

So, Apple has a more inconsistent dividend history in that it had one and suspended it previously. The counter argument here (by Apple fanboys) is that the company has a pile of cash that even Croesus would envy and will continue the dividend ad infinitum if not increase it occasionally.  Moreover, it has a far lower PE ratio (19.87) than Microsoft (51.01).

Sarcastic Reader: So…Apple…then?

Dr. Unwise: Please…please. I’m begging you in all the name of the holy, say Apple or nothing else makes any sense right now.

Dr. Scared: This is it! This is how you they screw you!!

PWT: In this contrived hypothetical, I’d pick Apple. This is where you get into investor biases and recognizing what your biases are.

Dr. Know-It-All: OK, smart guy. What are yours?

PWT: Hey, not welcome back, but long time no see. I had no idea where you went. My biases are clear: I am a value investor and always seek a good company with a long history whose business model I can understand and even more so if they have a good dividend history (ie, long history of paying out dividends consistently and best yet if the company keeps nudging the dividend up year after year without fail). The only other company types I look hard at are the ones that will be increasingly important given future needs/trends such as social media, cloud computing, 3D printing, technology, and—believe it or not—even water.

Apple checks all those boxes. In practice, however, you could easily split your money into $5,000 into Apple, $2,500 into Microsoft, and the remaining $2,500 into Facebook, betting on all three for the long term future and capturing the dividends of the former two while waiting patiently. And the dividends should then be set up to buy more shares of the stocks you already have evaluated as good buys which sets you up to keep buying more stock for no more money out of your pocket(s) ever again. This is the cheapest way in the world to dollar cost average and accumulate wealth over time.

Dr. Know-It-All: Um…thanks…

Dr. Spend-It-All: I’d just make the dividends come to me. So I can buy some jet skis for the lake.

Dr. Unwise: SOme? One isn’t enough.

Sarcastic Reader: Wait a damn second, Professor! We went through this whole exercise based on the fact that you could only pick one stock and not all three just like in medical school when they ask a question with all good options, but say there’s only one best choice. And then finally after a lot of flim flam you give the answer kind of and then tell us that “Oh, yeah, by the way, I’m changing all the rules now and would buy all three in real life.” What gives?

PWT: Welcome to medical school where students never win. Same with residents and fellows.

Dr. Unwise: Damn. So true…

Dr. Scared: This really is how they screw you!

OK.

Enough.

I’ve tortured everyone here long enough.

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…

Evaluating Stocks Part III: A Practical Example

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit enslaves us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

Sorry for the delay recently, Once again, life got in the way, but back into it we shall go. We last left off talking about the PE ratio in its definition, how to interpret it, etc. Now that we did the theory work, let’s do the practical part (just like med school—Ugh).

Let’s keep using Microsoft (MSFT) as an example and then we can do some comparison shopping amongst the tech stocks.

Microsoft currently has a PE ratio of 51.01 with a stock price of 108.66. The current PE ratio of the S&P 500 is 22.60 (estimated as of 10/19/18) and was 24.97 on 1/1/18. (If you peruse the table at the other end of the link, you will see the PE ratio of the S&P 500 has steadily been rising since 2012—from 14.87 to over 20 today. This keeps cycling up and down as you can see in the table.

The highest PE ratio of late was the incredible 70.91 as of 1/1/09—as the market as a whole was sinking and wouldn’t find bottom for ten more weeks in mid-March. Everyone was focusing on how much stock prices were dropping, but earnings were plummeting even further thus making the PE ratio [remember that stock price is your numerator, but your denominator is the earnings—who know all that elementary school math would bubble back up in your adult life?] at the time spike up. You can then see as the market recovered the PE ratio fell back to normal human heights 20.7 by 1/1/10.)

So, what exactly does all this mean in terms of evaluating MSFT as a potential buy?

Comparing apples to apples (even if they are Red Delicious [a misnomer for sure] versus Gala—7,000!?! Wow. Who knew?), the MSFT PE ratio is 51.01 versus that of the S&P 500 (current estimation) of 22.60 meaning that MSFT is 2.257 times more “expensive” than the average stock in this market. Maybe that’s OK though. Purchasing is a matter of not only price, but value. You don’t get a 4,500 square foot house in the best neighborhood in town for the same price as a 1,200 square foot place in the sketchy part of the same town. We all buy the same things at very different prices and feel (are sure?) that we are getting a good value for the money we are parting with.

But, to compare with MSFT with the average stock in the market isn’t quite fair. If you’re car shopping and say that a Mercedes is far more expensive than a Kia, you’re absolutely correct and also stacking the deck in a ludicrous argument. You need to compare your Mercedes to other luxury vehicles (BMW, Audi, etc.—yeah, I like German cars). The same is true with stocks.

So, MSFT needs to be compared with the other well know multibillion technology stocks out there not the Proctor & Gambles  and Coca-Colas of the world.

So, in terms of PE ratio (rounding to the nearest whole number), MSFT is 51, Facebook is 24, Amazon is 140, Apple is 20, Netflix (a technology company of sorts) is 119, and Google (never Alphabet in my view) is 47. These are the famous so-called FAANG stocks.

Sarcastic Reader: Hey fella, Apple at 20 and Facebook at 24 is way cheaper in terms of this PE ratio thing. Why not just buy one or both of them instead of Microsoft?

Dr. Scared: This is it! This is how they screw you!!!

PWT: Great point. Let’s compare MSFT vs Facebook  vs Apple as far as if you have $10,000 and want to put it all on one stock all at once right now…next time.

Dr. Unwise: Damn it! This guy is getting good at the tease!

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…

Evaluating Stocks Part Two: The PE Ratio—Not Pulmonary Embolism For Once

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit enslaves us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

When evaluating individual stocks, much is made of the dreaded price earnings ratio (AKA PE ratio) which makes the eyes of many glaze over and nod in silent hopeless agreement. Defining what it is is far easier than how to interpret it.

PE Ratio=A company’s stock price/earnings per share

This is typically calculated by the four past quarters of earnings divided by the annual earnings per share. This is defined as the trailing P/E (or PE) ratio.

For example, if a publicly traded company has a stock price of $20 and the earnings per share is $2 over the past year, then the P/E ratio is 10. (I like simple math.) Note that the PE ratio is not in dollars or foot pounds or some such thing. It’s just a number and that’s it.

So what? What does this mean?

Who cares?

So what exactly does this number signify?

This number tells you how much you are willing to pay for a company’s stock. Think of it this way. In the above example, it means you would be willing/you will be buying a piece of a company at ten times what they earn for each of those shares you purchased. You can compare this PE ratio of company A to either other companies in the same sector (eg, pharmaceuticals, energy, utilities, etc) or even the whole stock market. If the company in question is way out of scale with either its sector or the market as a whole, it should give you pause and make you figure out why should you be paying so much more for this stock as opposed to others (whether in that sector or in another completely different one). If you cannot definitively prove (at least to yourself and your significant other) why this stock is worth so much more than many others, then don’t buy it. I completely agree with the Warren Buffet maxim of “Buying a great company at a good price is much better than buying a good company at a great price.” (I’m paraphrasing the Oracle of Omaha, but it captures the essence of what he was getting across.)

The caveat to this is ensuring you’re getting at least a good price, if not a great one. (More on that later.)

Due to the fact that company earnings only come out quarterly and the stock price changes daily, the trailing PE ratio keeps moving daily. Therefore, many investors pay heed to the “forward” or “leading” PE ratio which is calculated with the same methodology, but using projected future earnings (essentially always estimated over the next 12 months).

Now you have two PE ratios competing against one another for each stock that exists.  

Sarcastic Reader: OK. Here we go. This is how the flim flam starts.

Dr. Scared: This is it! This is it!! This is how they screw you!!

Dr. Unwise: Just once i’d like to finally find out who ‘they” is.

PWT: Umm…let’s just…keep moving…on…

If the leading (or forward) PE ratio is lower than the trailing PE ratio is, it means analysts are anticipating the company’s earnings to increase over the next 12 months.

However, if the leading (or forward) PE ratio is higher than the trailing PE ratio is, it means  analysts are anticipating the company’s earnings to decrease over the next 12 months.

To further confuse the issue, there is something called a PEG ratio (price to earnings growth ratio) which is the company’s trailing PE ratio divided by the growth rate of the company’s earnings for some specified time period (again, typically a year). PEG ratios themselves can be categorized as trailing or leading/forward depending on whether historic growth rates or estimated future growth rates respectively.

The instance where PEG ratios are often used is when you seem to have a “steal” in a low PE ratio (“cheap”) stock to see if that is truly the case as the PEG ratio accounts for the growth a company is undergoing as it is moving along which may indicate not where it is now, but what you want to know most—where it will be in the future. (More on this later.)

The companies that do not have any positive earnings have either a negative PE ratio (my preference), just arbitrarily assigned a PE ratio of zero, or even more ambiguously the PE ratio is unassigned and noted to be uninterpretable since some argue the PE ratio cannot be used to compare this company to any other. (More on this later…I hope we have time for all of this later stuff.)

Now that we have defined the PE ratio and its variants, let’s go thorough an example of a stock and run it through an analysis of how they should be viewed through the prism of PE ratios.

Good thing there’s always another week coming up…

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…

Evaluating Stocks, Part 1

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit enslaves us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

I’m back after a fun filled fabulous family vacation. (That’s for all of you who enjoy alliteration!) Let’s just jump into it.

Let’s assume you want to get into individual stock buying yourself either without a financial advisor or on the side of your financial advisor. Also (and always a good idea), you could just want to check the stocks your advisor has selected for your portfolio.

Let’s start with the basics.

My bias: When I look at a stock that I am mulling over, I start with Yahoo Finance. It’s concise, easy to read, readily accessible, and has the basic statistics needed for at a minimum first blush impression of the equity.

Most importantly, you can’t beat the price point.

It’s absolutely free for life!

There are many many other stock research sites you can use and some will convince they are the best and even try to seduce with a freemium model where if you just only spend a few measly dollars a month, even more information like “quantum data” or some such thing will be unleashed for just smart people like you.

Here is how Yahoo Finance is set up for individual stocks.(I’ll use Microsoft [MSFT] as an example though this could be any stock.)

 

 

Sarcastic Reader: That’s as we say in the biz…a shit ton of numbers…

Dr. Scared: This is it! This is how they screw you!!

Dr. Unwise: Exactly what business are you in that a “shit ton” is actually a unit of measure?

PWT: Uh…guys…FOCUS!

One by one, let’s discuss the above statistics.

The company name along with its stock symbol is listed. The stock exchange where this stock is traded is also listed as you can see in this case is our old friend, the NASDAQ,

It also is noted that the prices you see is in US currency.

The current price is pretty obvious (I hope) with how much it went up (YAY!) or how much it went down (Boo!) as well as the percent increase (or decrease) corresponding to the number of dollars and cents the stock moved.

Believe it or not, there is after hours trading (but not for mere mortals like you and me) that causes (generally speaking) small fluctuations and a difference between what the stock in question closed at and what price it will open at the following morning. Along with this again is both the percent increase (or decrease) corresponding to the number of dollars and cents the stock moved.

Previous Close: This is what price the stock closed at just before trading started today (ie, the day you are looking at the stock’s info)

Open: This is what the stock price is at the open of the trading day which can be quite different than what the closing price was depending on what happened between those points in time Remember that any event in the world at any time may affect a company’s stock—a scarcity of a needed mineral, a civil war, a strike starting at midnight after failed last minute negotiations, etc, etc.

Bid: The highest price that buyers of the stock are willing to pay for the stock

Ask: The price at which sellers of the stock are willing to sell it at

Day’s Range: Easy peasy lemon squeezy. This is the top price of the day along with the lowest stock price of the day which just means the range of prices that you could possibly have purchased or sold at. Realize that the closing price or opening price does not have to be either the top or bottom price of this range, just somewhere within this range.

52 week Range: Just as easy as the above. This is the lowest stock price and the highest stock price over the past year (ie, 52 weeks) to give you an idea of where the current stock price is relative to its (fairly recent) highs and lows

Volume: the number of shares traded during a given period of time (usually in a day if not stated differently otherwise) Volume typically does not affect stock price directly. However, a  very lightly traded stock (not likely any companies you have heard of and not any you would invest in until you have a critical mass of core holdings already and become a more savvy [and bolder] investor) may fluctuate significantly with an unusually high volume of trading. Also, if you see volume change significantly (higher or lower) for any stock, it may be indicating something about the company that should you pay attention. Stop looking at the key statistics of the stock and just put the company’s name into a search engine and see what news is out there about the company. ALWAYS REMEMBER: YOU’RE INVESTING IN COMPANIES, NOT JUST STOCKS.  

Average Volume: the number of shares traded in any given time period divided by that unit of time which can be recorded as daily, weekly, etc though it is often daily and in some stock sites it is then denoted as “Average Daily Trading Volume (ADTV)”

Market Capitalization: the stock price times the number of shares available for sale (ie, the number of outstanding shares) This can be misleading in terms of saying this is how much a company is worth given the fact that it doesn’t account how much debt the company may be carrying and the fact that it also doesn’t account for all the shares the company doesn’t put out for public sale among many other factors not to be discussed here

Beta: a stock’s sensitivity to the overall market

A beta of 1.0 means the stock moves (up or down) in perfect alignment with the overall market whereas a higher one means it moves higher or lower than the market’s same direction. For example, a beta of 1.10 means that this particular stock will move (up or down) 10% greater than the overall market does. A lower beta means that the stock in question will not move (up or down) as readily as the overall market does. Ideally, your stock has a beta of 1.0 since it is predictable relative to the market. If you have a high beta stock and the market has a downturn (and it will happen as sure night follows day), then your stock will likely get crushed.

(For you sadists who need to know how beta is calculated [no one is talking to you Dr. Scared or Sarcastic Reader], this is how it works in a thumbnail sketch. Believe it or not, the company’s monthly earnings over the past five months versus the returns from a major index {usually the S&P 500 which is serving as the surrogate of the overall market} who then undergo a statistical regression analyses [don’t ask me details people, I’m no mathmagician] and, voila, your greatly desired beta pops out.

Now imagine doing that for every publicly traded company every month.   

PE Ratio (TTM): the current share price divided by the EPS (earnings per share) This is a way to figure out the pricing of a stock relative to the overall market  and also other companies’ stocks especially if in the same sector (eg, comparing two tech companies or even more relevant [since tech companies are widely diverse—Google vs Netflix anyone?] two car companies). TTM=twelve trailing months—all numbers are based on what the company has done over the 12 months prior to the time you’re viewing these statistics.

EPS (TTM): Earnings per share The company’s earnings over the past 12 months divided by the number of shares of the company’s stock available for trading (AKA outstanding shares)

TTM=twelve trailing months—all numbers are based on what the company has done over the 12 months prior to the time you’re viewing these statistics

Earnings Date: The date at which the earnings of the company in question are publicly revealed This is done quarterly at least and can significantly change a stock’s price. People have bribed their way into getting that data early and invest accordingly—and then go to jail for insider trading

Forward Dividend & Yield: Forward dividends are exactly what they sound like—payments that are expected to be paid out in the future Trailing dividends are the ones that have already been paid and can be cataloged given that they have already been paid and are well known. There’s no speculation in trailing dividends, just forward ones. Estimating forward dividends is an art, not a science. If you have a company with stable dividend payments without any fluctuation for years or even decades, then the forward dividend estimation is easy. However, that’s rarely the case and then you need to look at the forward dividends with a skeptical eye. In either case, all dividend calculations are based off a time period of 12 months.

Dividend rate is the total amount of dividend payments paid over 12 months (forward or trailing). Dividing this dividend rate by the price of the stock and then multiplying that by 100 is the dividend yield. Think of the dividend yield this way: For every $100 invested in the stock in question, the dividend yield will tell you how much money will get paid out to you each year. (For example, a dividend yield of 3.35% will mean you as an investor will get $3.35 for every 100 dollars invested in that stock for that year.)

Ex Dividend Date: The date by which an investor will not get the next dividend Buy before this date and you will own the stock as short as possible to still get the dividend. If you’re going to buy a dividend paying stock anyway, the least you can do is buy it so you get your first dividend ASAP which makes a giant difference over the next 20-25 years.

1 Y Target Est.:To quote Yahoo Finance itself, “The 1-year target price estimate represents the median target price as forecast by analysts covering the stock. Data is provided by Thomson Reuters. More detailed target estimate data can be found by clicking a company’s “research” link.” In a practical sense, this is largely worthless given the fact it is updated only every 6 months or so.

Here are a few more statistics that Yahoo Finance doesn’t have featured prominently, but that other stock websites do.

Sales short:the total number of shares that are being sold short (ie, shares that are borrowed with the hopes that the company’s stock will go down in price) This gives you an idea of how some large experienced or even institutional investors view the stock if there is a high number of “shorts” betting against the stock. They may be wrong, but it should be heeded when many people are betting against the stock. What do they know that you don’t? It should give you pause as to why so many people are betting against it and why.

Short Interest: percent of outstanding shares that are being sold short In other words, of all the shares that are available for public sale, how many are betting that the stock will be going up versus how many are betting that the stock will be going down. It’s a general (though only one) indicator of investor sentiment which alone can drag down or elevate stock prices.

Ok….tons of info thrown out at you in one not-so-little blog post. Now that we’ve learned how to read through key statistics of a company’s stock, we can build on that next time.

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…

 

Know the Lingo

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit may enslave us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

INVESTING SLANG, PART 1

Let’s take a little break from hard core financial literacy and investing and talk about some of the lingo you’ll hear used on financial shows or blogs/books or even worse movies.

Amaranthed: A fund that takes large positions in companies that turn out to be wrong and then goes bankrupt much like Amaranth, a hedge fund focused on energy, in 2006

“I lost everything because my dumbass fund collapsed. I got Amaranthed.”

Bear: An investor who has a pessimistic view of how the market will do OR a market with negative returns currently

“Don’t listen to him. He’s a bear even in good times.”

“This bear market has pushed back my retirement at least two years.”

Blowup: When a critical mass of investors in fund all sell is a short time usually due to poor performance (but possibly other issues) resulting in the fund’s closure

“Great, Just great. My Latin American fund sucked so bad that it had a blowup leaving me with nothing. And Venezuelans thought they had it bad.”

Bull: An investor who has an optimistic view of how the market will do OR a market with positive returns currently

“This is such a bull market that even grandmas are becoming millionaires.”

Dead Cat Bounce: The temporary increase in a stock’s price after a huge drop before it starts falling again which may be mistaken for a stock that is now through its temporary troubles and is ready to climb up seeming like it’s a value when it’s actually a trap. Even a dead cat bounces up off the sidewalk.

“Don’t touch that stock. It was a falling knife and just entered its dead cat bounce phase. Don’t be fooled.”

Falling Knife: A security (usually a stock) experiencing a sharp downturn which may be mistaken for a good value on a company or fund

“Don’t dare put money in that thing. It’d be like catching a falling knife.”

Go long: An investor or fund that goes from a neutral or bearish outlook to a bullish one

“Wow! Did you see those new job numbers? I’m going long!”

Go short: An investor or fund that goes from a neutral or bullish outlook to a bearish one

“Ugh. Did you see those new job numbers? I’m going short!”

Hedge fund: An investment fund composed of capital from accredited (ie, high net worth) investors or institutional investors (ie, college endowments, retirement or pension funds, even cities if you can believe that) run by firms that use debt or leverage as a way to invest in any type of security, but usually are high risk/high reward and charge fees along with a percentage of profits that they generate for their investors (at least in their best years when they actually generate profits)

“I’m putting my money in a hedge fund because I’m probably too rich anyway and could use the tax write off when I inevitably lose all my money in this thinly veiled Ponzi scheme.”

Hedgie: Anyone working for or running a hedge fund

Hedgistan: The I-95 corridor between Manhattan and Westport, CT including the epicenter of the hedge fund world, Greenwich, CT

“Beware as we drive through Hedgistan. Guard your wallets.”

Paying for Beta: Fees to a fund that only gives investors returns that any index fund does at a much lower fee rate

“I love paying for beta because in addition to my stupidity in all money matters, I’m also a masochist.”

Perma-bear: an investor who has a persistently or even permanent negative outlook on the market

“He’s such perma-bear they call him Dr. Doom.”

(Probably not what you were expecting if you’re a Marvel comic books fan.)

Perma-bull: an investor who has a persistently or even permanent positive outlook on the market

“Look at that guy, The market is getting crushed like a car at the junkyard and he is still a perma-bull. Makes no damn sense.”

Random walkers: Investors who do not believe that they cannot outperform the market in any sustained period of time due to the inability of anyone reliably predicting the future performance of the market

There’s tons more where this came from and more will be posted both next week and again in the future for sure.

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…

Portfolio Building Part VB: Examples of What We’re Talking About

Never forget these two axioms:

Money frees us, but its pursuit may enslave us.

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

Portfolio Building, Part VB

In the last post, we discussed a reasonable (perhaps even great) investing strategy with little (no?)  day-to-day effort on your part.

As a reminder, here is what was proposed:

25% S&P 500 Index Fund

25% Mid cap Fund

25% Small Cap Fund

25% Stocks

Let’s leave the stock behind for now and talk specifics on the funds.

As I’ve said many other times in other places, low fees is the key to outsized gains long term for index funds since they are more passive investing where they are matching (or, at least, attempting to match) the index they are designed to match.

Realize that there are several indexes that funds can follow at each level of market capitalization.

The S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite Index are the two best known large cap indexes that are tracked. Another large cap index is the Russell 1000 (which is the compilation of the 1,000 largest publicly traded companies in the US).

The mid cap indexes are the  S&P Mid-Cap 400, the Russell Midcap Index, and the Wilshire US Mid-Cap Index.

The best known small cap indexes are the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P 600.

Cheapest Index Funds

S&P 500 Index Funds:

Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares

Symbol:  VFINX

Net Expense Ratio:  0.14%

Minimum Initial Investment:  $3,000

But if you can reach the initial investment requirement of $10,000 for their “Admiral” share class (symbol: VFIAX), you can get the cheapest available S&P 500 index fund with an expense ratio of 0.05% which translates into a $5 fee for every $10,000 invested.

Schwab S&P 500 Index (SWPPX): The expense ratio is 0.09%, or $9 for every $10,000 invested. The minimum initial investment is $100.

There are many, many large cap index funds that do not track the S&P 500 index, but rather other large cap indexes such as the Russell 1000, so feel free to look for them if you would prefer those rather than the ones that track the S&P 500.

Mid cap Index Funds:

Northern Mid Cap Index (NOMIX):

The expense ratio is 0.15%, or $15 for every $10,000 invested, and the minimum initial investment is $2,500.

Vanguard Mid Cap Index (VIMSX):

The expense ratio is 0.20%, or $20 for every $10,000 invested, and the minimum initial investment is $3,000.

Small Cap Index Funds:

SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap ETF (SLY):

The expense ratio is 0.15%, or $15 for every $10,000 invested.

Vanguard Russell 2000 ETF (VTWO):

The expense ratio is 0.15%, or $15 for every $10,000 invested.

Vanguard Small-Cap Index Fund Investor Shares (NAESX):

The expense ratio is 0.17%, or $17 for every $10,000 invested with a minimum initial investment of $3,000.

However you can pony up the minimum initial investment of $10,000, you too can be invested in the Vanguard Small-Cap Index Fund Admiral Shares (VSMAX) which charges a microscopic expense ratio of 0.05% or only a $5 fee for $10,000 invested.

How do they do it? Vanguard does it again!!

iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM):

The expense ratio is 0.20%, or $20 for every $10,000 invested.

Northern Small Cap Index (NSIDX):

The expense ratio is 0.15%, or $15 for every $10,000 invested, and the minimum initial investment is $2,500.

Schwab Small Cap Index (SWSSX):

The expense ratio is 0.17%, or $17 for every $10,000 invested, and the minimum initial investment is $100.

And for those of you who want to look beyond the US borders…

International Stock Index Funds:

Vanguard Total International Stock Index (VGTSX):

The expense ratio is 0.19%, or $19 for every $10,000 invested, and the minimum initial investment is $3,000.

Schwab International Index Fund (SWISX):

The expense ratio is 0.19%, or $19 for every $10,000 invested, and the minimum initial investment is $100.

Let’s discuss two other types of funds that are less commonly invested in, but may be of interest to some, especially if you’re not going to invest in individual stocks and have a 25% void to fill (rather than making your S&P 500 fund, mid cap fund, and small cap fund 33% each which is a completely reasonable option).

You have never heard of micro cap companies/funds (if you don’t read all my posts—shame on you, reader—or have a faulty memory), but as hinted at they are smaller than small cap companies/funds.

A Quick review:

Mega caps>$200-$300 billion in market capitalization (remember that?) (it’s arguable on the cutoff especially since it’s a newer term that holds no real value in terms of funds, etc being set up to follow just these companies since there is no significant growth in these companies given how big they already are)

Large caps>$10 billion

Mid caps=$2 billion-$10 billion

Small caps=$300 ($500) million-$2 billion

Micro caps=$50 million-$300 million (or $500 million depending on who you ask/use as a resource)

Nano caps<$50 million

There are no true micro cap indexes as the two best known (the Russell Micro Cap Index and the Dow Jones Wilshire US Micro Cap Index) also include small cap companies in them thus skewing what the performance of the micro cap market actually is which makes it difficult or even impossible to see how your micro cap fund is doing versus all micro cap companies en toto.

And just forget the tracking of nano caps.

Micro Cap Index Funds:

For a relative unknown group of companies, there are dozens upon dozens of choices in the micro cap index fund world. So, good luck in your search at this market capitalization level of funds since it’s likely you may not know any of the component companies in these funds.

Bond Index Funds*:

Vanguard Total Bond Index (VBMFX):

The expense ratio is 0.16%, or $16 for every $10,000 invested, and the minimum initial investment is $3,000.

Northern Bond Index (NOBOX):

The expense ratio is 0.16%, or $16 for every $10,000 invested, and the minimum initial investment is $2,500.

*I loathe bond index funds as mentioned earlier as they combine the downside of low returns of bonds with the relative higher risk of mutual funds. But for the sake of completeness, the above are some inexpensive bond funds.

Blech!

As you can see, there are quite a few Vanguard funds here which is not surprising as they made their name and fortune on low cost index funds as others ridiculed them for it. Vanguard got the last laugh as it is now the largest fund family in the world with over a TRILLION dollars invested with them (AKA assets under management AKA AUM).

Certainly, there is no reason to invest in only the Vanguard funds alone as they are not always the cheapest as you can see from the above listings, but for the sake of convenience, Vanguard is as close as you can get to a one stop shop for all you low cost index fund shopping needs. Is that slightly increased cost on 1-2 funds worth less hassle than a few funds under Vanguard and then one under another fund family and yet one more under a third fund family? Only you can answer that question for yourself.

Well, that should about do it for this post.

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…

Brick Upon Brick Redux

Never forget these two axioms:

 

Money frees us, but its pursuit may enslave us.

 

It’s not how much you have at the end; it’s how much you could have made.

 

Portfolio Building, Part V: Brick Upon Brick

After significant deliberation, I decided to re-post this from weeks ago with some key additions to the post to better explain the caveats and even pitfalls with certain aspects of portfolio building.

 My apologies for not thinking this through fully to have it in the first time, but I hope the additions are worth your time the second time around or for new guests, consider this the Greatest Post in Investing Blog History.

So here we go (again)… 

We talked about various fund only portfolios, but not one with stocks mixed in which is a good way to help increase your returns above what the S&P 500 as long as you understand there is at least a commensurate (nice SAT word, nerd!) increase in risk if not more.

An easy way to set up a retirement portfolio is to do the following:

25% S&P 500 Index Fund

25% Mid cap Fund

25% Small Cap Fund

25% Stocks

There it is.

That’s it.

That’s all there it is to do to retire on Easy Street.

That simple.

Well, I guess I should close down the blog now.

 

What?

Wait, you want to know more?

OK then.

Let’s get started.

Let me introduce you to the brilliant David Fish  (RIP to the recently departed King of Dividend Investing) who spent the past decade plus compiling publicly traded companies who kept increasing the dividend yearly for a string of consecutive years while you were learning about the difference between Golgi apparati and mitochondria and the finer points of the brachial plexus. Fish has categorized these companies that have increased their dividends to their shareholders year after year by the number of years that the dividend increases have taken place.

Dividend Challengers: the last consecutive 5-9 years

Dividend Contenders: the last consecutive 10-24 years

Dividend Champions: the last consecutive 25+ years

Then, to add to the confusion, there’s another overlapping category:

Dividend Aristocrats: the last consecutive 25+ years

SR: Umm…that’s the same thing there, Captain.

To explain, the Standard and Poor’s (remember them?) put together the Dividend Aristocrat Index with the principal difference between the David Fish’s Dividend Champions and the S&P’s DIvidend Aristocrats is the latter, not surprisingly, only contains companies in the S&P 500..

SR: The fix is in…

Dr. Scared: This is it!! This is how they screw you!!

PWT: Uuh..yeah..so anyway…

…whereas the Dividend Champions are any publicly traded companies on any index that fulfill the criteria as stated above (ie, increasing their dividend each consecutive for 25 years or greater). Therefore with this difference, there is a sizable difference between the Champions (115) and Aristocrats (53).

This “CCC” list is updated at the end of each month  by David Fish to ensure if a company has not increased their dividend in consecutive years or, even better, if a company has increased its dividend in enough consecutive years to be listed in any of the above categories.

To be able to not just maintain the same dividend, but actually increase it year after year, especially after a quarter of a century or even longer is beyond remarkable, In fact, it’s stunning when you think about it. These companies would have not just survived, but actually thrived, in all sorts of conditions including recessions, wars, new competitors, changing technology, etc.

Let’s take a look at the dividend aristocrats in particular.

These 53 are large companies (multi-billion dollars in market capitalization) that have survived and even thrived through all the gyrations of the market and nation since their respective inceptions. These companies have few opportunities for significant growth because of how massive they are already, but make you lots of money in the long term even if their share price barely budge over the years. (One way to think of it is like this: ideally, the company whose stock you own keeps jacking up their dividend year after year with the stock price barely moving     allowing you to buy more and more stock, and then three months before you retire it triples in value. This would be epically awesome AKA The Unattainable Dream.)

As noted before, the beauty of dividend investing is getting paid to buy a company’s stock and then be patient to continue to get paid during which time the more stock you buy, the more dividend it generates thus leading to more cash to buy even more stock leading to an upward spiral of stock/dividend/cash which is a beautiful thing to behold.

Here is an example of ten Dividend Champions along with the number of consecutive years that dividends were raised (and placed in descending order of those number of years) :

3M–59

Coca-Cola–55

Johnson & Johnson–55

Colgate Palmolive–54

*Altria (Tobacco company; formerly Phillip Morris)–48

McDonald’s–42

RLI (Insurance Company)–42

Clorox–40

ExxonMobil–35

AT&T–34

*Altria is the one company above that is not in the S&P 500 thus making this a list of DIvidend Champions, not Aristocrats, to be technically correct.

It’s a pretty well diversified group that virtually every American purchases from at one point or another throughout any given year. If most or all of these companies go down, then you don’t have a portfolio problem, you have a national/global economic crisis (see 2008-2009).

So, in a portfolio sense, it would break down as the following:

25% S&P 500 Index Fund

25% Mid cap Fund

25% Small Cap Fund

25% Stocks with each of the ten above stocks receiving 2.5% each (also make sure all dividends in these stocks and even the funds above are set up to automatically be reinvested back into whatever stock or fund they came from)

Just make sure you regularly invest into the above four categories or thirteen discrete securities consistently (ie, monthly or even more frequently, not any less frequently than monthly however—more on the mechanics and logistics of stock/fund purchasing in a later post).

Then just sit back and watch the returns roll in.

Several caveats:

1,) Realize that the above percentages (25% for each category with 2.5% of each stock) is how it will start, but not likely how it will be in 2, 5, 10, or a greater number of years. Stocks and funds will fluctuate and will also generate dividends in varying amounts at varying times which should then be purchasing those same stocks and funds at varying prices.WIth differences like that, it’s inevitable that some equities will race ahead of others over years to decades.

2.) This inequity in your equities (HA! I’m here all week folks!) may be perfectly fine and isn’t dangerous or problematic in of its own though some people rebalance their investments by shifting how much they pay into each equity to keep them the same as much  as possible (OCD much?). Rebalancing these equities will take constant monitoring and not an insignificant amount of calculating/effort to do so which is totally contrary to what any of us would like and certainly not the whole point of the “build it and feed it and otherwise leave it alone” system of retirement investing.

The one thing to note as equities separate out from one another is to realize that the inequity is blunted by the fact that the most expensive ones will wind up gaining fewer and fewer shares with each purchase due to their share prices relative to the other cheaper ones.

3.) Do NOT fall into the trap of changing your equal contribution towards the best performing equities and away from others. The point of having equal contributions is to have your savings spread out throughout the US or even global economy in case of fluctuations and especially in case of downturns. What is well performing one quarter or year or even decade may stall or even recede suddenly at the exact time where you keep putting in more and more money into that very equity. Don’t let market fluctuations in the short term distract you from a solid-great plan that will thrive over 25-35 years, not 25-35  days or even 25-35 months.

4.) A good argument against the above portfolio is that owning shares of mega cap companies in addition to a S&P 500 fund is that they are both representative of large cap companies which is now 50% of the portfolio with mid caps and small caps at 25% each. In addition, some people are just not comfortable with owning stocks of individual companies which I think is personally fine. Do what you’re comfortable with and not what you think you should be doing. None of this is worth having reflux or insomnia over. That is an absolute certitude.     

Before we finish, it’s time for a little shouting however.

THE DIVIDEND CHAMPIONS I CHOSE ARE PURELY ARBITRARY OTHER THAN BEING WELL KNOWN COMPANIES AND DO NOT AT ALL REFLECT MY CHOICES OF WHAT A GOOD INVESTMENT CONSTITUTE. DO NOT THINK IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM THAT I AM PROMOTING ANY ONE OF THESE COMPANIES FOR ANY PERSON TO BUY.

END OF YELLING DISCLAIMER…

Thanks for tolerating my CYA tirade!

We will discuss evaluating individual stocks in a future post however.

I’d love to hear from any and all of you about your thoughts, so we can all learn from one another.

Please spread the word about this blog to your friends (real and virtual), family, and colleagues. Talk to you soon.

Until next time…