Wow! That was truly a crazy last week of the month. A great week for stocks and a not so great week for bonds. This is when zooming out and looking at market changes over a monthly period helps to add some perspective. Having said that lets jump right in Read more…
Top quality insurance companies are among the best values in the market today. I’ve written about Fairfax Financial before as the best stealth dividend stock in the world and about their CEO, Prem Watsa, who is often called the Warren Buffett of Canada. As it turns out, Berkshire Hathaway is Read more…
I thought today would be a good day to discuss the recent Q2 2011 dividend announcements from the mortgage REIT (mREIT) companies that I track. Six out of the seven mREITs I follow have announced their Q2 dividends. For my previous posts on mREITs see here. Also, today the fed Read more…
In my last post I described what I consider the worst case scenario for MLPs in the event that their tax favored status ends overnight. Today I want to look at a few of the upsides of such an event. Yes, I do think there are upsides to ending the Read more…
What is the worst that could happen? That’s a question I always ask myself when making an investment. I look at the major risks posed to an investment and do a worst case scenario analysis with respect to that risk factor. When it comes to MLPs probably the major risk Read more…
Today I wanted to touch on another common behavioral issue that most investors fall prey to, anchoring. I’ve commented previously on the behavior gap, how behavioral issues lead to investor under performance and specifically how more information often leads to worse investment performance. Anchoring is another behavioral pitfall for investors. Read more…
May has come to a close. It was certainly and interesting month for income investments. Here is the beginning of June Income Investor Dashboard updated with prices as of the close of trading June 1, 2011. As usual the green highlights are for the sectors that became cheaper during the Read more…
I am a contrarian investor by nature. When there is too much fanfare around an investment, be it a stock or whole asset class, I usually find myself wanting to run for the exits. The hair on the back of my neck literally stands on edge sometimes. Most value investors Read more…
Well, the MLP correction I discussed earlier seems to have run its course for now. I thought this would be a good time to see what this correction has done for MLP valuations relative to history. I last did this back at the end of Q1 2011 and was planning Read more…
In several previous posts on mortgage REITs (mREITs) I have discussed the basics of understanding them, that there could be a good investment opportunity in them, and I presented an economic model that breaks down their sources of earnings and dividends. Now, its time to address the very important topic Read more…
Enterprise Products (EPD) reported Q1 2011 results on May 10. 2011. All in all I can’t say or do much except stand up and extend EPD a hearty golf clap. Results were impressive to say the least. I’ll let them do the talking. The full press release is here. “Enterprise Read more…