I an earlier post I talked about MLP valuation and considered if the sector was overvalued. My conclusion was that based on avg historical yield the sector seemed pricey but based on my preferred metric, the yield spread to the 10yr note, the sector was not over valued. Today I Read more…
Modern finance theory teaches that market risk is measured by the volatility of asset prices. Just calculate the standard deviation of asset returns and there you have it – risk. But risk of what? Volatility measures risk as how much your portfolio varies over time (also to the upside remember). Read more…
Today I wanted to cover one of the most critical dividend stock metrics, yield on cost (YOC for short). Rising YOC is one of the great benefits of owning dividend stocks, in particular one with good dividend growth. YOC is simply the current dividend rate divided by the price you Read more…
I figure that after my last post on stock market returns for the next 10 years, I’ll try and do something similar for bonds. After all, these are the two most important assets classes that make up retiree portfolios, often in the much talked about 60%/40% stock, bond allocation. Without Read more…
So says John Hussman. First, if you don’t know who Hussman is, I recommend that you get to know him. Hussman is a mutual fund manager who runs the Hussman Funds. He is a value oriented manager but also focuses heavily on managing risk, i.e capital preservation in bad market Read more…
All markets experience periods of excesses. It looks to me as if we’re getting to one of these times with the fixed income markets. The news item that led me to this post was about a foreign bond – ‘Mexico floats century bond in a hungry market’. An excerpt from Read more…
High investment fees hurt. We should all try to minimize them. Conventional wisdom, right? In one way you would think so with the rise of firms like Vanguard, discount brokers, ETFs, etc… On the other hand, there has been the massive rise of hedge funds, derivatives, and other esoteric products Read more…
The goal of many, if not most, retired dividend investors is to generate enough income via dividends to cover their living expenses. And additionally to have that dividend stream increase faster than inflation. Sounds like a great goal. If you can achieve it then you can let the principal ride Read more…
Well, the Gators got slaughtered this weekend and it looks like I’ll lose at least one of my fantasy football matches today. But I do have the Dolphins left tomorrow night against the Pats – there’s still some hope to salvage the weekend. A quick investment blurb for this rainy Read more…
One week ago I posted about tech stock dividends and that tech stocks may become great dividend stocks in the future. Well, its one week later, the Gators are playing again (this time vs Bama, god help us) and its time to revisit tech stock dividends again. My conclusion in Read more…
I’ve discussed the 4% withdrawal rule, the safe withdrawal rate (SWR), a couple of times already; in my post on how much does it take to retire and the one on how to actually use the 4% rule. Great, we’re all prepared for a safe and happy retirement. But wouldn’t Read more…