 Every industry faces periods of rise and periods of decay. The last few years have, not surprisingly, been a period of decay in the REIT Area. But like nuclear stocks after 3 mile island, or banks after the savings and loan scandal, or bonds after the junk bond era, after a sector has been decimated what is often left are the high quality well managed companies that will rise to dominate the sector in the future. Is now the time for REITs?
Read More...
|
For your reading pleasure a few interesting articles from around the globe about dividends, stocks, the market and other just plain interesting finance or economic oriented articles- enjoy!
Read More...
|
 I am a big fan of companies that make it a regular habit of dialing up a dividend. This is why I have been such a proponent of the dividend aristocrat group. Nothing perturbs me more though than to buy into a 2% dividend stock that I believe will crank up its rate only to be forced to wait multiple years before seeing that increase. To counteract this here is a simple parachute that can increase your confidence that a rate will increase.
Read More...
|
 I had a fellow investor tell me one day that they would never buy shares in Microsoft (MSFT) as their software is so widely pirated. I’m not a big fan of Microsoft stock but I’ve heard that reason given before and it is just silly- let me tell you how it works.
Read More...
|
For your reading pleasure a few interesting articles from around the globe about dividends, stocks, the economy, the market and other just plain interesting finance or economic oriented articles.
Read More...
|
 Before any investment in a company I try to do business as a consumer with that company. Balance sheets can only tell you so much about the “true” story of a business. When the option came up to buy a new laptop for my wife I thought, Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) stock has been interesting to me for some time, let’s give them a go.
Read More...
|
 A recent mass layoff at my company has given me a fresh perspective on layoffs. Normally, as an investor, we see layoffs as a courageous way to drive profits forward by shaking off some areas of weakness. I have personally invested in companies shortly after a mass layoff if I believe that such changes will benefit the profitability of the business. From a purely financial perspective viewing a company as a machine is an easy thing to catch one’s self doing. However there are some soft costs involved in layoffs to a company culture that I wasn’t really aware of until the week after I witnessed fellow employees walking out the door for the last time:
Read More...
|
 It has become formulaic that when a movie comes out one of the advertisements will feature reviewers comments like “riveting”, or “one of the must see movies of the year” and of course my favorite “an instant classic”. The point, obviously, of these reviews is to convince you, based on some other expert’s testimony, that you need to see this movie.
Read More...
|
The largest struggle I have as an investor is not researching companies, or finding and analyzing data, or even pricing a stock; it is having the patience to do all of these things properly.
Read More...
|
 A day off from US markets is a great opportunity. With the world being what it is markets are not entirely driven by internal factors. Use your day off today to read international business news. This news can certainly give you a heads up as to what you should expect from the markets in the next day. This trick helped me immensely during the early days of the credit crunch. Bad news would break crashing out European and Asian markets while US markets were closed for holidays- guessing what the US market would do the following day?
Today is a good day to look closely at the Google vs. China story. While China’s business accounts for very little of Google’s bottom line, as the story evolves we have certainly seen market fluctuations. Maybe today is a good day to setup a buy if you have been looking for some weakness, or maybe if you think the market will overreact to Google leaving China (if stories today point that way), and today is a good time to plan your exit from Google. Your call read the news and see what you think.
|
 Having been on a recent trip to the southern US I was awestruck with the prices of property there. Being out of my element in a new city I simply wasn’t comfortable with the idea of investing though. With proper preparation trips of this type can be quite rewarding and one of your best tools is often overlooked- Google Maps.
With a simple browse of an area in Google maps you can learn all of the following:
Read More...
|
I am always surprised to see the enthusiasm people exhibit when they hear that housing prices are rising, to me this is 100% bad news.
I hear remarks all the time like,
Housing prices are up 12% over last year, I am going to make a killing on this house when I sell in a year or two!
Read More...
|
 I had an interesting email conversation with a reader named Bill that I wanted to share. Bill is a stock broker in Oregon and has been working with the same brokerage firm for over 10 years. As I have taken several opportunities to slag their profession I was interested to hear more about his experiences. In the back and forth chat he said something that I think epitomizes my real issue with brokers.
Read More...
|
Investing is done successfully by understanding direction, and velocity, not by looking at velocity alone. Velocity (in this simplified context) is the speed and distance a company achieves over time, this may be earnings, profit, sales or margin. Direction is which way the company is pointing, up or down, this speaks to a deep value assessment, or an understanding of the health of the overall business.
Read More...
|
|
Advertisement
Advertise Here
|
 Executive Compensation is a touchy subject. Some believe executives should be compensated in relation to share price. Others feel that an executive should derive their satisfaction from the growth of their business and not from pulling down a massive salary. Buffett for one is a huge proponent of this approach. He pays himself a comparably paltry $100K salary per year and several of the businesses owned by Berkshire have CEOs who share this same compensation package.
Read More...
|
 As a new service for readers we are now offering free stock analysis. None of that automated technical analysis you see on other sites, and no one is going to contact you about purchasing services after you submit, I am talking about straight forward free fundamental analysis.
Read More...
|
 The practice of prebooking sales involves a business going out and contacting its regular customers and requesting that they purchase the inventory they are forecast to purchase in the next quarter now.
Read More...
|
 The reality of investing is that the further you are removed from managing your money, the further removed you will ultimately find yourself from the profits you are trying to reach. Every additional person you involve in making a financial decision will demand to be compensated- no one works for free.
Lets look a simple example; you buy some mutual funds though your broker.
An innocent enough activity, but who all is involved with this transaction and do they profit at your expense? Well there is:
Read More...
|
 To understand a balance sheet requires that we understand every line item, what each means, and how it can be manipulated. Today we are going to look at the line item for Goodwill.
Read More...
|
 Does the market price of a stock play a significant role in your decision to buy, or not buy shares in a company? For me the answer to this question has always been no, I look at rate of return and give almost no credence to stock price. If I invest $100K in a company it is of little interest to me if I get 5 stock or 500 stock in this company as long as I see a return on my initial investment. I have a good friend who will only buy a stock if it is trading for under $5. Are there advantages to his system?
Read More...
|
 In our continuing series on dividend cuts, why they happen and how to learn to see them coming before they hit your portfolio today we are going to look at the curse of new management.
Read More...
|
 In our continuing series on dividend cuts and how to avoid them, today we are going to look at what the effects that market and sector pressures have on making company’s cut dividends, and how you can train yourself to see them coming.
Read More...
|
Advertisement
Advertise Here
|
| « Older Entries |
|
