We are hearing about the deluge of IPOs coming out already in
2011, as well as the filings beginning to jam up the pipeline. From
the valuations we are hearing on companies like Facebook and
LinkedIn, I am beginning to wonder if publicly-traded corporations
are thinking about taking their own companies private and then
coming back to the markets at some point in the future, likely
greeted with higher valuations than Wall Street is currently
placing on their shares. You can bet there are many scenarios being
discussed in corporate boardrooms as to how to take advantage of
companies that may be undervalued.
We could also see more M&A as companies take some of the
large cash hoards and put them to work. One of our current
recommendations, Verizon (
VZ
), put some money to work last night, announcing a $1.4 billion
acquisition. We of course would love to keep seeing companies
raising dividend payouts, but we can't complain - the number of
dividend increases so far this year has been to our liking. Check
out
last night's long payout changes
list and you'll see what I mean.
The market is certainly not off to a good start today, as we
inch closer to wrapping up our first month of 2011 for the markets
on Monday. The headlines coming out of Egypt didn't seem to matter
much a few days back, but with the indices in the red today, more
attention is being paid to the happenings in the Middle East. It
will be interesting to see if commodity names get a bid today,
following the heavy selling we have seen in metals, oil, and
elsewhere.
Before we look at today's movers, just a quick note to remind
everyone that we added a new high-yield name to our recommended
list today. Be sure to check out the
article
detailing our upgrade here if you did not receive the e-mail alert
we sent out earlier. It's been a decent week as far as new
recommendations go, with 7 new names in total joining the rest of
our
Best Dividend Stocks List
.
With some of the momentum money coming out of stocks like
Amazon.com (
AMZN
) and Ford (
F
) today, we were looking to see if buyers would look to dividend
names for comfort. It wasn't the case for companies like Microsoft
(
MSFT
) and T.Rowe Price (
TROW
), both seeing some selling following earnings results. Wall Street
downgrades were also being felt in shares of Consol Energy (
CNX
), Diageo (
DEO
), and Lincoln National (
LNC
). Today's sell-off today is not necessarily a bad thing as I would
love to see better entry points for various stocks currently on our
recommended list.
Here are the final investing anecdotes from this week's series.
I hope everyone gets something out of these. If you are newer to
the markets, keep these points somewhere where you can go back and
reference. If you are an experienced investor, it doesn't hurt to
get a bit of re-schooling on points you may have overlooked through
the years. I can tell you this from a personal experience. One
should never stop learning or re-learning. Think of it like a
superstar athlete does. Why do they practice? Because they want to
keep their skills sharp! The same concept applies for
investors.
Investment Strategy Anecdote #21 - "Anything can and will happen
in the markets."
Who would have thought we would have seen a General Motors (
GM
) bankruptcy? The stock was a fixture in many dividend portfolios.
This is why you can't just put your portfolio on auto-pilot and
think it will manage itself. You should be checking out your
holdings at least once a month, as well as making it a goal to put
new money to work each month, at a minimum.
Investment Strategy Anecdote #22 - "The stock market does not
follow conventional wisdom."
Boy, I'll say! There will be times that large caps dominate and
conservative investing works best, but then there are the go-go
times of internet stocks mania - when companies made no money but
had insane valuations. We'll be sure to keep our subscribers on the
steadier path to wealth building.
Investment Strategy Anecdote #23 - "There are continual
opportunities in the market."
Without question! There are always areas that you can commit new
money to, even when the market looks its most scary and volatile.
Our recommendations go through numerous checks, so that our best
dividend stocks list is always up-to-date for investors considering
new capital to put to work.
Investment Strategy Anecdote #24 - "There is way too much
information and very little good information."
I have always said this and still do. There are some great services
out there, and there is nothing wrong to subscribing to multiple
sources when it comes to stock research. Think of it as an
investment in your continuing money education. Just stay away from
the chat rooms and advice from your friends/relatives on "hot"
stocks (almost always a penny stock that they hear about from an
unreliable source).
Investment Strategy Anecdote #25 - "The market can be irrational
longer than you can be solvent."
This refers to investors that take it upon themselves to draw lines
in the sand on a particular stock or investing style. There will be
times when someone decides to let his/her discipline slip away and
it can lead to portfolio blow-ups. Avoid jumping on the margin
bandwagon. The lure is there for all, but don't ever play with
money that you don't have, or can't get back if you need to.
As we look ahead to next week, earnings season will continue to
be in full bloom with reports coming from the likes of Exxon Mobil
(
XOM
), Dow Chemical (
DOW
), MasterCard (
MA
), Merck (
MRK
), and plenty more. Be sure to catch up with our latest watchlist
updates this weekend on Dividend.com Premium, including reports on
earnings/story stocks, analyst upgrades/downgrades, dividend ETFs,
and more. And as always, you can view our current recommendations
on our industry-leading
Best Dividend Stocks List
.
Thanks again for reading everybody!
Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the
Best Dividend Stocks
, as well as a detailed explanation of
our ratings system here
.