As we dug into another morning chock-full-of earnings results,
the lack of commentary regarding job growth from corporate America
remains a key theme we are not losing sight of. One of the things
that will be required to keep the economy from eventually going off
a cliff is not just job growth, but also an increase in existing
salaries. The recent data we have been monitoring shows nothing of
the sort for middle-class employees. In fact, the trend has been
flat to down.
Looking at specific earnings plays today, the early winners
included names like Ethan Allen (
ETH
) (a furniture play riding the wave of any sort of real estate
uptick), Travelers (
TRV
) (a rare quarter where "Mother Nature" remained calm), Verizon (
VZ
) (thank you Apple for new products), Polaris Industries (
PII
), and Union Pacific (
UNP
) (record earnings despite lower coal shipments). On the flip side,
investors were pushing toward the exits in shares of Danaher Corp (
DHR
), American Express (
AXP
), Morgan Stanley (
MS
), and Phillip Morris International (
PM
) on the day.
Market Misconception About Target-Date Funds
I was reading about a survey from AllianceBernstein talking
about the misconceptions investors have about target-date funds.
When presented with the statement that target-date investment
balances are "guaranteed never to go down," 34% incorrectly said
the statement was true and 23% said they didn't know. Even worse,
when asked to comment about the claim that target-date funds
"guarantee that you will meet your income needs in retirement," 37%
incorrectly answered "true" and 22% said they didn't know.
So in total, about 60% of those surveyed were totally uninformed
about the investing reality of what they already own or intend to
own. It's amazing, but many people don't seem to grasp the concept
that nothing in the stock market is ever 100% guaranteed! Yet, some
still believe the opposite. All of us in the investment research
business work hard to avoid potential pitfalls, but investors need
to roll up their sleeves as well and stop taking every nugget from
the financial industry at face value.
We live in a super-competitive world where at any moment a new
industry is rising, and the decline of a once-dominant one is
declining. Paying close attention to these trends is a key part of
the equation for those interested in building wealth.
Investing in real estate or other areas that produce income is
hardly any different. You take your eye off the ball and you will
lose money. Get into investments you don't understand and guess
what, you'll lose money. Take the wrong advice from someone
unqualified to give financial advice, and yup, you'll lose money
again. The opportunities where you can skim the surface and expect
to make money are few and far between. You can hit the lottery once
in a while without knowing anything about anything, but for the
millions that try it each day all across the world, what is the
usual outcome? It's money lost. The concept is proven time and time
again. The less due diligence done by investors, the higher the
likelihood of losing money.
25 Years of Dividend-Increasing Stocks
We recently updated our list of dividend stocks that have been
paying out dividends for 25 years or more. Be sure to check out
the latest list of names here
.
Dividends Really Matter
Financial blog DailyReckoning.com recently took a look at the
difference dividend payouts made in the overall return investors
saw throughout the prior decades. Here are some of the
highlights:
- The Nasdaq is down 28% since the end of 1999. Even the "blue
chip" S&P 500 stocks are down 15% during that time frame…until
you add back those "boring" dividends. With dividends included, the
S&P 500′s 15% loss flips to a 6% gain.
- Without dividends, the S&P 500 index would have produced a
loss for the 25 long years from August 1929 to August 1954. Then
again, without dividends, the S&P 500 produced a 5% loss during
the 13 years from September 1961 to September 1974. But with
dividends included, the S&P's loss became a 46% gain.
- Over the course of the last half-century, dividends have
contributed more than half of the stock market's total return -
56%, to be exact.
Of course, you can't discuss the potency of dividend investing
without making mention of how awesome compound returns are. I can't
stress enough the power of compound interest: you take a small
amount of money and turn it into a large amount over time. Finding
the right companies at the right price points which not only grow
earnings, but also grow their dividend payouts as well!
New Watchlist Article Out Today
Be sure to check out our weekly Top 50 High-Yield Watchlist
Names post that is out today, exclusively for
Dividend.com Premium
members. This list gives readers a good idea of what stocks we're
watching behind the scenes here for potential upgrades.
Go Beyond This Newsletter
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data on the web. Many subscribers use this data as part of a
"Dividend Capture" trading strategy, but long-term investors can
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Ex-Dividend Calendar
for a complete outlook on which companies will be paying out
soon.
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Thanks for reading, and I'll see you tomorrow!
Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the
Best Dividend Stocks
, as well as a detailed explanation of
our ratings system here
.