Today I want to delve into a widely misunderstood part of the market – mortgage REITs. This misunderstanding creates some great opportunities for income investors to enhance returns and income without taking on much more risk. I’ll focus my discussion on the biggest and best of the mortgage REITs, Annaly Read more…
I think I’ve made it pretty clear that dividend investing is the basis of my investment strategy. Why is that? Well, to summarize; dividends provide higher returns (see this post), dividends enhance returns during bear markets (see this post), dividends account for most of world wide stock market returns (see Read more…
Last month I introduced my income investor dashboard that helps me keep tabs on the investment landscape from an income investor’s point of view. I’ve updated the dashboard as of this morning. Here it is: I added this month’s updates to the table and calculated the change in yields from Read more…
In my Time to buy munis? post the other day I think I left out a couple of key elements in my desire to keep the post from becoming too long. As I said in my last paragraph, an even slightly aggressive income investor may want to look at muni Read more…
I’ve been looking at municipal bonds recently. Whenever I see a large sell off in any asset class accompanied with a lot of media hype the contrarian hairs in the back of my neck tend to perk up. All markets tend to over react more often than not. These over Read more…
What if I told you that there was a way to glimpse into the future? To somewhat accurately estimate the future returns on your investments? Well, with dividend investing there is a way. Its called the Gordon Growth Model or as I like to call it, the Magic Dividend Formula. Read more…
In my 2011 outlook post earlier this month I mentioned that I had raised the cash portion of my portfolio to 40%. I did this by selling out of my commodity positions. A recent post I read at Pragmatic Capitalism reminded of me of this and that I should explicitly Read more…
Kinder Morgan (KMP) reported Q4 2010 results after market close yesterday. Results were in line with market expectations. Here is the summary from the press release: Distribution 8% Higher Than 4Q 2009 2010 Distributable Cash Flow Up 14% Over 2009 HOUSTON, Jan 19, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Kinder Morgan Energy Read more…
2010 was another great year for the MLP sector. The MLP index, AMZ, finished 2010 with a total return (including dividends) of 36% compared to the S&P500 total return of 15.1%. And that was after a 76% return in 2009! Those kinds of returns will sure help you lead a Read more…
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a great 2010 and wish you all the best in 2011. For my first post of the year I wanted to review my 2010 results and highlight a few real successes and of course some bad trades as well. Lets get right Read more…
Today I wanted to talk about one of the stocks on my Christmas wish list. This investment is a good example of how some good detailed homework can find you some great investments. Lets jump right in. What if I told you that right now you could invest in Berkshire Read more…