Ron Peterson <ron[at]shell.core.com> writes:
- quote -

Be very wary of a simple screen looking for high dividend yields.

Often they are very high on a trailing basis - which is to say
before the dividends get cut, but after share prices have plummeted.

A high dividend yield is only worthwhile if it's sustainable.
You want to see a div yield that's high with respect to share
price, but also low with respect to the company's cashflow and
earnings, etc etc.

A good high-dividend screen is not trivial.

Moreover, sometimes those screens will block out companies
which have had to cut dividends in the short run for the
better long-run health of the company - these may be companies
you want to avoid, sure, but they may also be companies which
are being run well and responsibly, and are responding to
market conditions (as opposed to the companie which are
cutting dividends while they are crumbling around themselves
as are some of the financials these days).

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Ron Peterson wrote:

- quote -

Thanks for the tips, I'll play with it when I get a chance.



Brian

--
Day 22 of the "no grouchy usenet posts" project

On Feb 24, 4:48*pm, "Default User" <defaultuse...[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

Yahoo's is at http://screener.finance.yahoo.com/newscreener.html

Look at market cap over $1B and dividend yield over 8% or whatever
works for you.

--
Ron

"The Henchman" <don'taskme[at]iampoor.net> wrote:

- quote -

Maybe after you have about 10 years experience picking stocks.

Seriously, when you start picking individual stocks, you are paying for an
education. Leverage will only increase the cost of that education.

Don't get me wrong. If you are interested in learning stock picking, go for it.
Start with some paper portfolios. For each stock you buy, write down why you
are buying it and what criteria will make you sell it. Review that list
regularly and see what you did right and wrong. Write that down. After a year or
so, start buying for real with money you can afford to lose. Keep writing down
trading decisions and keep reviewing them.

After a few years, you might find your niche and start getting consistently
profitable. After you have been consistently profitable for a few years, you
might start using leverage.

-- Doug

"Elizabeth Richardson" <erichktn[at]worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:G8Vol.37110$4m1.30032[at]bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

- quote -


Well I'm not determined to. I'm just seeking advice. Myself I'm very
hesitant to purchase stocks but the papers and radio call-in shows I've been
exposed to have been talking about the young starting business and
purchasing stock and this environment might be close to ideal claim a couple
of "smart" people.

The question then becomes would leverage/borrowing money make sense to
purchase dividend paying funds?

Ron Peterson wrote:

- quote -

I'm not all that familiar with using them. Which do you recommend and
what criteria?




Brian

--
Day 21 of the "no grouchy usenet posts" project

On Feb 24, 2:22*pm, "Default User" <defaultuse...[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

- quote -

A stock screener will bring up dozens with a dividend yield over 8%.
BP has the largest CAP of that group.

--
Ron

BreadWithSpam[at]fractious.net wrote:

- quote -

Generally, I'm a fan of index funds. However, given the reservations
people have about the composition of these dividend funds, are there
any decent lists of dividend-paying individual stocks available? This
might (and I stress might in the "I dunno" sense) be a possible time
for going individual.




Brian

--
Day 20 of the "no grouchy usenet posts" project

The Henchman wrote:
- quote -

Borrowing money is a darn good idea right now, if you believe in the
prospect of an upcoming hyperinflationary crash to the value of the
dollar, as the deficit gets outta control and foreign investors stop
paying for our bailout(s), entitlements, and war machine.

But don't invest it in stocks for egads sake. How about real, physical
assets like houses or gold?

T

"The Henchman" <don'taskme[at]iampoor.net> wrote in message
news:kDQol.230781$se4.121720[at]en-nntp-03.dc1.easynews.com...
- quote -

So invest in a mutual fund that provides an income stream. I just don't see
your problem and why you are so determined to invest in individual issues.

Elizabeth Richardson

"The Henchman" <don'taskme[at]iampoor.net> writes:
- quote -

There are a variety of ways, but with quantities of cash that
size, the only one I recommend is buying a good, low-cost,
low-turnover mutual fund. Or two.

a. a low-commission broker such as Zecco.com, Sharebuilder.com,
both of which let you actually pay zero commissions if you
conform with their program.

b. save your weekly cash into a money-market fund for two or
three months, then buy *one* stock. Then start again and
buy another next time. You're not in a rush, are you?
That way, you're buying, say, $1000 worth of stock each
time, and with a typical commission of $10, you are paying
only 1% transaction costs.

c. buy a fund. with those levels of cash involved, do you
really think it can possibly be worth the time and effort
to manage a portfolio of individual stocks? (Many would
say that even with very substantially larger portfolios
it's still more sensible to buy good funds, especially
those suggesting massive diversification via low cost
index funds).

- quote -

So don't do that. It's a bad idea. But if you insist
on doing that, look at (a) above.

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"Elizabeth Richardson" <erichktn[at]worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:PhKol.397283$Mh5.232705[at]bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
- quote -


No I'm not oppossed to them. I've been contributing to mutual funds/index
funds for 5 years diligently. They are almost the only afforadable way to
invest into the markets. I purchase and research on my own now so that I
don't have to pay sales fees or commission fees or loads. When I first
started out I was losing 2.5%- 5% in sales fees for mutual funds and 1%
commission to the financial planner and an additional cost of 2+% for MER
but I've learned to cut costs and get group outperformers for a fraction of
the price.

My second point relates to redistributable income streams. For many, to
achieve thier financial goals a second or third income stream helps alot. A
dividend income stream is noramlly taxed at 25% of a person's marginal tax
rate. In my case I calculated that $1.00 of dividend income will only be
taxed $.08 wheras in other forms of capital gains income it's $.16 and from
my paycheque's income it's $.32. It's one of the few direct tax breaks that
I haven't been able to take advantage of.

By borrowing at a low cost I can develop a larger dividend income stream
much sooner, at a fraction of the tax rate. for example: if I borrow $10000
to purchase more shares upfront, it'll still cost the same in brokerage fees
as the $2500 that somebody suggested because I'm still purchasing the same
number of companies.

On Feb 23, 9:12*pm, "The Henchman" <don'tas...[at]iampoor.net> wrote:

- quote -

Save the cash and when you have $2500, buy a round lot.

--
Ron

"The Henchman" <don'taskme[at]iampoor.net> wrote in message
news:SzJol.48509$B07.335[at]en-nntp-04.dc1.easynews.com...
- quote -

You seem to be opposed to mutual funds. May I ask why? They provide the
small investor, like you and me, with the opportunity to diversify while
still being able to invest in stock equities. I don't know about the mutual
funds available to you in Canada, but there are companies in the US where
investing through stock mutual funds is quite inexpensive and affordable.

Elizabeth Richardson

"Ron Peterson" <ron[at]shell.core.com> wrote in message
news:fa727e72-e968-401d-8d45-5c8ea9b41bb9[at]a12g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

How can people purchase stock if they only have $100 or $200 or $50 a week
to contribute?

Every week I can buy 1 share each in five different stocks and what will my
transaction fees be? I'll get charged $100 in fees alone.

What do people pay for brokerage fees when they purchase $100 or $200 at a
time for stocks?

On Feb 23, 5:47 pm, BreadWithS...[at]fractious.net wrote:
- quote -

To expand a bit more on this, I believe WaMu, Citigroup and Bank of
America had this ten year history of increasing dividends. So since
VIG holds a much smaller proportion of financials, I imagine VIG's
screen is quite a bit tougher. One web site mentions that VIG's basis,
the Mergent Dividend Achievers Select index, requires companies to
have a certain amount of "liquidity."

In any event, what a lesson this era will be on allocating to
financials.

I trust someone else may dig further on the subject of VIG, the
Mergent index on which it is based and dividend achievement.

JoeTaxpayer <JoeTaxpayer[at]comcast.net> writes:

- quote -

Note that even after the pounding that financials have already
taken, they still make up 27+% of that fund. Morningstar is
showing a trailing 12 month div yield at just under 7%, but
that trailing yield includes a bunch of dividends which are
very likely to have been cut already so I'd be very hard
pressed to believe that the forward dividend yield will be
anywhere near as high. Nevertheless, I'd guess that it'll
still have a higher div yield than treasuries...

I feel a lot more confident about the div yield of VIG
Then, the TTM yield on VIG is only 2.78% as of 2/20.

With both of these indices, any stock which cuts its
dividend will be out. DVY requires 5 yrs of no div cuts
and VIG requires 10 yrs of increasing divs. VIG's
screen had already kept out a lot of firms which seem
to have gotten into more trouble lately, but DVY had
loads of financials and when it's rebalanced, it may
look quite different.

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Keep one thing in mind.

The only way that you can lose everything in investing, assuming that
you are sensibly diversified, is by using borrowed money. If you do
not use borrowed money and are well diversified, you could lose half,
2/3 etc, but never everything.

So if you want to borrow some small amount, like 10% or some such, you
probably will come out OK, but if not, it can kill you and one day it
will. During Great Depression, stocks went down by 89%. It can happen
again.

Losing everything is a disgrace.

i

PeterL wrote:

- quote -

I look at DVY, a 7.29% yield as of 2/20/09.
It seems that if I have the nerve, and expect to hold for the long term,
that using this ETF in a leveraged purchase can be profitable.
With my HELOC rate at 2.5%, it would take a slashing of dividends by
more than 2/3 to have a net negative (cash flow) on this.
OTOH, if dividends are slashed, is it possible for this set of stocks to
slide further? I don't know, and no, I don't have the nerve.
5 years hence, I'll likely regret this decision.

Joe
www.blog.joetaxpayer.com

On Feb 22, 8:51*pm, "The Henchman" <don'tas...[at]iampoor.net> wrote:
- quote -

GM was paying dividends and was a blue chip stock, but look what
happened.

- quote -

Your transaction fees should be low, if not, get another broker. Just
save until you have enough over your emergency fund to buy a round
lot.

- quote -

Most of us have to violate that rule when buying a house.

- quote -

It's usually not a good idea. Most companies are already leveraged
which increases the risk, but frequently increases the company
earnings.

A company's earnings is more important than the dividends because if
the earnings aren't adequate, the dividends will eventually be cut.

You can get an income stream from most stocks by selling out of the
money covered calls where your main risk is losing the stock and not
getting any sympathy.

--
Ron