Despite some grumblings from Spain overnight about the country's
deficits, the markets ended the week fairly quiet.
Shares of Wynn Resorts (
WYNN
) moved up sharply today on news the company may be building a new
resort in Macau. Recent slowdown fears in Asia had been putting a
cap on the casino giant's shares, which have since been halted as
the company meets with analysts. A
cautious Wall Street analyst call
had shares of Traveler's (
TRV
) seeing a bit of red early on. Credit card plays Visa (
V
) and MasterCard (
MA
) pulled back, erasing most of the gains we saw earlier in the
week. Gold (
GLD
) was unable to rally back late in the week following a huge
sell-off mid week. Market technicians are considered about gold
making lower highs.
IPO Frenzy
The latest social media brand to go public is Yelp!, which
offers user-generated reviews and information on local businesses
and service providers. The company priced its IPO at $15 and opened
up for trading at $22 this morning, eventually closing at $24.53.
The company's market cap at its $15 pricing last night was around
$900 million (based on the closing price, the market cap is now
approaching $1.5 Billion!). That valuation is for a company that
did $83 million in revenue in 2011 and is still yet to turn a
profit after 7 years in business.
We've seen a lot of similar speculation lately in the momentum
space. Often times, this trend leads to a meltdown in the most
popular high beta names, so investors should take note of these
kinds of moves.
Of course, the big kahuna, Facebook (which is profitable at
least), is the main IPO everyone will be watching for in 2012. The
timetable for its IPO is supposed to be this May. It'll be
interesting to see how traders approach that name, and if we see
any of the most conservative investors get lured in as well.
It Ends When it Ends
Fans of 70′s television probably remember "The Monkees" show,
along with the title band's catchy music. It was sad to hear about
their lead singer (and most famous of the bunch) Davey Jones
passing away suddenly at the age of 66 this other day due to a
massive heart attack. He was apparently still very active
performing and had been in reportedly good health before his
passing.
None of us know when our final day will come, so it makes sense
to be as prepared as possible ahead of time. No one wants their
family to be left scrambling should they suddenly pass. I remember
back when I was a full-time trader, I'd sometimes worry about what
would happen if I were to meet an untimely demise. My solution - in
terms of my trading - was to instruct my wife to simply close out
any trades I had open.
When it comes to dividend investing, I have almost the exact
opposite plan. I want to make sure the stocks I own continue to be
held, the dividends reinvested back into more shares. We're often
contacted by people asking about dividends they've inherited from
parents or grandparents and how to get financial details on them.
Unfortunately we're not a broker and can't offer much help to them
directly, but I imagine some of those folks have quite a fortune
awaiting them.
Whenever you hear about famous people passing at relatively
young ages, you naturally think about your own mortality. As a big
Met fan, the recent passing of Gary Carter at age 57 from brain
cancer was a shocker as well. Such is life, I suppose. All we can
do is live each day to the fullest and do our best to ease the
financial burdens on those we'll eventually leave behind.
Nothing Cookie-Cutter Here
We now live in a world where people's attention spans are
shorter than ever. Kids, especially, face numerous distractions
from electronic devices that keep them constantly connected to
their social circles. I feel for teachers these days, who are
saddled with the task of keeping kids' attention and focus. It
certainly can't be easy!
Adults, too, face similar distractions on a day-to-day basis.
That's why in this newsletter, I try and find nuggets of interest
that you wouldn't normally expect to find in a financial
publication. When the overall subject of building wealth and being
smart about it is the underlying message, I hope no one ever finds
the newsletter cookie-cutter in any sense of the word.
New Dividend Stock Recommended Today!
We just upgraded a new dividend stock this morning onto our
industry-leading
Best Dividend Stocks List
. Be sure to
check out our post
detailing the upgrade if you haven't already.
Our
Beat The Markets with Dividend Stocks
eBook Has Arrived!
We just debuted our brand new 275-page eBook, exclusively on
Dividend.com! In this digital-only book, we look ahead to 2012 and
the main factors that could affect dividend investors. A $39.95
value, the eBook is a
free download
for paid
Dividend.com Premium
subscribers.
Beat The Markets with Dividend Stocks
contains a full economic forecast for 2012, including in-depth
analysis on 65 of the biggest dividend stocks out there. It's a
great way to get prepared for your investing next year! So head
over to the
Dividend.com Premium homepage
now to download your copy.
A Look to Next Week and a Weekend Preview
Looking ahead to next week, earnings will begin to lighten up
with some of next week's big names reporting results include Vail
Resorts (
MTN
), Men's Wearhouse (
MW
), American Eagle Outfitters (
AEO
), Altera Corp (
ALTR
), and 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 much more. And as always,
you can view our current recommendations on our industry-leading
Best Dividend Stocks List
.
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you this weekend! P.S. Please
pass this e-mail on to someone you think can use some financial
motivation as well as being kept in the financial news loop that
could affect them.
Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the
Best Dividend Stocks
, as well as a detailed explanation of
our ratings system here
.