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Dividends and ‘The Magic Pants’

Date31 Mar 2014

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Summary While dividends may comprise a significant portion of total returns, they don’t add any explanatory power to future returns. Approximately 60 percent of U.S. stocks and 40 percent of international stocks don’t pay dividends. The total returns to investors come from capital gains. Corporate dividends can be replaced with self-made dividends. Seeking Alpha blogger...

The Perils Of The Carry Trade

Date31 Mar 2014

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What’s known as the carry trade is one of the more popular strategies of hedge funds, and it’s also becoming popular for investors seeking alternative fixed-income strategies that can provide higher yields in today’s environment of low rates. The strategy involves borrowing (going short) a currency with a relatively low interest rate and using the...

Dividend Streams & Returns

Date31 Mar 2014

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Dividend payments have been on a systematic decline since 1972, and the percentage of firms paying a dividend has declined from 63.8 percent in 1972 to 30.4 percent in 2011. The question is now, What does paying dividends tell us about possible returns? Even after controlling for firm characteristics, companies have become less likely to...

7 Myths About Dividend-Paying Stocks

Date31 Mar 2014

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Common misconceptions Dividend-paying stocks may look awfully appealing, but you should be able to separate the truth from fiction before you jump into these investments. Here are seven common myths about dividend-paying stocks. Myth No. 1: Dividends hold up in bad markets. There is a perception that dividend-paying stocks will hold up better when the market...

The Anomaly of Greed

Date31 Mar 2014

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I was recently speaking with a colleague in the advisory business. The conversation turned to greed. We both share a fascination with the CNBC programAmerican Greed. The program chronicles investment scams, with touching portrayals of victims. The scams have a common thread: the promise of huge returns with little risk. Often the returns are “guaranteed”...

Determining the Markup on Municipal Bonds

Date31 Mar 2014

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Most of the market news you hear tends to be about stocks, but bonds are just as useful a tool for most investment portfolios. One type in particular, the municipal, or “muni” bond, remains very popular. These bonds are issued by local governments, they’re often tax-exempt and they can be relatively low risk. But muni...

What Makes a College Essay Stand Out From the Rest

Date31 Mar 2014

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Seth Allen, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Pomona College, Claremont, Calif. College essays carry far more weight than they have in previous decades. With a record number of students applying for college, admissions offices have become highly selective when considering student applications. While each school has its own criteria, schools typically look for students...

A College Student’s Viewpoint: The Game of Life, Riding a Bike and the Decision to Go to College by Brian Zdrowak and Jessie Zdrowak

Date31 Mar 2014

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When you were a child, did you ever play the board game Life? In the very beginning of the game, each player has a decision to make: Do they enroll in college, or head off into the work world? Heading into the work world meant making money right away, however, college meant student loans and...

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