That's a good solid plan Bob.... NLY is a terrific payer... but IF -- Big IF -- the interest rates start climbing -- the dividend will get eaten alive with a drop in share price. Of course that's hard to predict when and where and how much etc -- but JNK -- NLY -- HYG -- these are very mortgage interest rate sensitive.... and the banks are going to start to jack up the mortgage rates if houses keep selling like they have been. What remains to be seen is if the sales are really localized regionally or are they broad based.

What I like about NNN (National Retail Properties) is that they're a big box retail lease outfit. They're not leasing to mom and pop operations.... so the rents come in on time and the leases (the buildings) get taken care of. They have quite a good list of big box stores. In a good economy or bad -- most big box stores don't just fold up the tent. Even if a big box retailer scales back - they might close a store but they're still obligated to pay the lease. This has been a good name for a long time and as a REIT is obligated to pass through the bulk of the profit.

What I picked up from this article is that "most" or "many" have their net worth (outside of the primary residence value) INVESTED in the equities (stock) market.




http://www.nbcnews.com/business/risi...ires-1C8865668

Good little read... stay the course people... invest that "extra" money wisely, and dont blow it on stupid crap. lol

much like MCD
 

Another sneaky one is CVX! Wow! I bought some shares on 1/31/2012 at $103.39 and collected 5 dividends since then! Total return is about 20% in a year!

another one of my core items. I purchased a little later, and then purchased some more on their big "dip"... im at around 12.5% paper gain + a few dividends.

We have some serious investors here! Soon they'll be known as the "millionaires next door"!


Way to keep at it guys! Seriously.... this is the way it gets done!


Just please remember that the way to get 'er done is to not give up when the chips are DOWN.... That is when the smart guys buy more. They suffer - but then they're made whole -- and make money.

How does SIAL look to you guys?

Personally --- I've never heard of it.... It might be a great name.... But I don't invest in stuff I know nothing about.

Investors, here's an excerpt from The Intelligent Investor that really slaps you upside the head when we think to deviate from the rules in Investing 101...

Although it speaks about the un-sustainability of over-concentrating, it also shows that wealth is not about striking it rich, but is really about having the intelligence to grow money over time. I suppose that's the point GW keeps making regarding luck. Luck is certainly a part of the equation to get rich "quickly" and "easily"... but it's only the kindling. Turning riches into wealth takes intelligence and time.

Stay the course!


GW, I'm rooting for you on the 400 list!

Good points made here! Very good points.


You know - really - there are so many OLD sayings that actually MEAN SOMETHING if you care to listen.

Diversify
Pigs get fat - HOGS get slaughtered
Don't put all your eggs in one basket
Nobody ever went broke taking a profit
COMPOUNDING


I've said it a 100 times -- none of this is complicated. WE try to make it complicated.... because WE think we're smarter or WE think we can't loose... or WE think this is the sure thing...

<<<<< BUZZER >>>>>


Just buy good stuff -- best of breed names -- keep adding to the pile.... re-invest the dividends -- don't hawk your house -- strive to get debt free by retirement....


Then you dudes could come skiing with me in Sun Valley... go racin' with Charlie... and just generally mess around!

EEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA


BTW --- I'm a long long long ways from making ANY lists except my wife's S**T list.

I know I have my own thread on philosophy but what the hell. :D

The fundamentals of life and business never change. What happens is people forget what got them there in the first place. All good things come from labor and persistence. Get fat and lazy, you become broke and start blaming the democrats. :D

Greg is rich because he found an opportunity, took advantage of the opportunity, worked at growing his wealth, continues to work at growing his wealth, and will always work at growing his wealth.

My mentor Jim Rohn says, "Success is the refined study of the obvious." I can't think of a more opportune time to use it.

Back to my own thread.....:peepwall:

Thanks for that.. it was a really good motivator for me..

Thanks Todd!


So here's the way I look at this -- I'm just not very eloquent about it....



Let's go back to my "employees"..... Where each dollar represents one employee. I like to think of them this way because you always must manage your employees. That takes some work. And if you ask most business owners - they'll tell you that THEY take less vacation and less time off than their employees do. It's their work ethic that is why they're the boss and not the employee.


The thread is not about ME.... The thread is about how YOU can be a successful investor using some of the simplest concepts that anyone can do. BUT -- always that dang big butt -- YOU DO HAVE TO WORK AT IT.

What we've already seen here is that many were lazy in their investing - and even though they had some dough stuck away - that dough was asleep or on vacation. The "company" 401K etc lulls people into thinking that they've done all they can by simply "participating". <<<<< BUZZER>>>>> Some have literally wasted 10 or more years of precious time languishing in these "plans".

My goal has been to be like Dorothy and show you the yellow brick road. That with just a little bit of work --- it can and does make a HUGE difference. But -- like what Todd just posted -- you can't think you're work is done. The outcome is far too important to allow yourself to go back into that mode of "I participated" therefore I'm done. You've got to make this a hobby - get into it just like we do our cars. We're always reading or participating with our cars... we never grow tired of it.

Health - Wealth - Cars/Hobbies... You need the first one otherwise the second one is useless to you... and the third one takes the first two if you really want to enjoy it. All of it takes constant work.

You're welcome..... Remember, motivation only gets the motor running. Discipline keeps it going. If I was managing my own money, I'd start by reading a good book, watching the market everyday at the same time, and listening to somebody way more successful than me(This Thread). Those are three great disciplines to start with.

You can only be great at so many things at once. I'm man enough to admit that I don't know enough about stocks or the market to manage my own money. It seems to me with something as important as your portfolio, you better be all in or all out. Learning all you can and gaining experience. Otherwise, you may do yourself more harm than good.

I think this article is worthy of a quick read.... and it's not for his personal portfolio --- but rather --- I think his way of THINKING is great! This is a kid that actually uses his brain to get a large picture about "sectors" and their possible issues.... I like that! He has a very good way to think about diversification --- that you don't need to be in EVERY sector - and in fact, there are sectors to avoid.

Remember that OTHER PEOPLES way of doing things may not have 100% merit... but there's usually a nugget here and there that should be considered and I think this writer has a couple of them. It's not so much the details -- but the "thought process".



http://seekingalpha.com/article/1280...g_income&ifp=0

That was a good article. I agree with him about the tech and banking stocks. I don't care to follow or know enough about the sectors to get involved. Way too risky in my mind. Plenty of other sectors out there to choose from and still be diversified.

I've decided to take a gamble on a stock. It's only a small gamble and won't hurt me really if it fails but all indications are that it will be ok even if it's not a huge return. Considering I'm not trying to get rich quick with any of this, I figure why not try. It could work out well and I think I'm being conservative enough with my other selections so as not to be in risky territory. The company is Mid Continent Energy Partners(MCEP). They are a new company but are being run by experienced people. I'm interested in them for a few reasons. They are run by experienced people gives me piece of mind, they have a $0.50 per share dividend, the share price is low so I get more buying power with the dividend payment, they've increased their dividend twice already, and they are bringing in the petroleum like they predicted. They are a partnership like KMP so I did this under my Roth IRA to shield my tax liability. So we'll see what happens. Maybe it'll be a barn burner and I can retire after a few more years because of it :lmao: Yeah, right. Regardless, I think it'll turn out alright.

Good for you Trey!


It's perfectly okay to take some risk.... you just need to be prudent about it... and you need to be in the head space that says - Oops it went to zero... okay... no biggie - maybe next time. Rewards don't come without risks. They key is to not "gamble" with money that is crucial - or money that you have other plans for "shortly"... where you put yourself into a "must sell at a loss" situation.


Several years ago -- I invested in a start up company. The shares cost me .53 cents each... I bought a bunch of them... the company then went public about 2 years later and it opened at $18 and went to $28.... RIGHT BEFORE IT WENT TO $1.70... I never sold any of it.... I used to tell myself "hey! at a buck seventy I still have a triple in it"! MY POINT IS --- I didn't have to sell, I wasn't worried about the investment because it was money that I could do without. It was a very small percentage of what I have (had) to invest.

Eventually we sold it all, in an all cash offer from EMC @ $34


Was it risky? Hell yeah! Was it rewarding? Uh... just a little. :lol:

Out of curiosity, how did you learn of the startup?

:cheers:

My wife spent 20 years in hi tech and we know everybody who's anybody in that industry in our town. Remember the old "better lucky than smart"... and it's not always what you know but who you know.

Want me to make a list of how many of those I LOST BIG MONEY in??

The question of whether or not to time the market has come up several times during the course of this thread. The following article takes a look at investing now versus holding and investing in one year. The outcomes might surprise you.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1278...s?source=yahoo

No doubt, in a longer view than 5 years, buying lower would eventually recoup and surpass the "buy it now" scenario. But, as the author points out, does anyone really know what the stock price is going to do? Is the 40% upside risk worth the 60% downside risk the article describes?

I got a good laugh this morning --- with the market opening up nicely --- the talking heads on CNBC were talking about General Mills (GIS) -- yeah.... the cereal company. I'm like -- okay -- really? Cereal... WTF!?! Cramer calling it
a "dividend monster". So...... Of course I go out to see for myself why he'd be calling a boring old lady stock like General Mills a dividend monster. Well.. it pays a whopping 2.82% dividend. That's a dividend monster?

BUT here's the deal -- I look deeper -- and we come up with that TOTAL RETURN... which is really what we're after... and now this little old lady stock starts looking better... and it split 2 for 1 in June of 2010... and the TR for 5 years is 88%.

The reason I chuckled to myself when I'm looking all this stuff up is ------ most "investors" are always talking about the get rich quick stocks... Everybody is trying to find the next Dell -- or Microsoft -- or Google.... While in the meantime -- the little old lady has doubled her net worth in CEREAL over the last 5 stinky short years. Go figure.

I guess my point would be... INVEST -- best of breed? Dividend payer? And total return (growth in capital) doesn't have to be the next hot deal..... Facebook IPO anyone??? :popcorn2:

..........and I'm just waiting to dump my $35 dollar shares of Dell acquired in '99.
And have no intention of selling my old-school '69 :D

Well.... We have fresh powder here... so I'm headed for more vertical. But there's an old saying about "your first loss is your best loss". That stock has been "dead money" for 10 years -- ditto Microsoft... and I have MANY friends still into those stocks big time -- waiting for the "rebound". In the meantime they could have sold 9 years ago --- invested in General Mills cereal and they have 3 times more money.


Yeah --- I had a HUGE amount of MSFT shares.... but I scaled out of them on a regular basis and re-invested in other stuff. Sometimes I look back and say -- if I hadn't sold at "X"... I'd have had double the amount of dough.... and then I look at my friends that are still holding and rode it down to a third of "what they had"... I'm retired - they're not. :thumbsup:

Dell & HP may end up cereal......

Yup, I'm a World Champion Bull Rider...........thought I was winning, until I realized the bull was dying. :sieg:

I watch MadMoney whenever I get a chance and he is always preaching best of breed dividend stocks for long term investing.

Isn't the owner of dell trying to take the company private?

Yes --- at around $14 a share I think... That company is dead and dying IMHO --- Mobile computing is the growth area -- so they're left with the replacement desktop and laptop business --- Low margin requiring high volume... The world has changed... it's tablets - Apple - and smartphones.... Dell is none of those.

So im going to newb up this great thread by asking a silly question.Im on page 61 currently so I have have a understanding of what I should be looking for in a stock. I started out looking at local company's that i use. Casey's (CASY) is a gas station currently only in the midwest, in the last year they have purchased land in tennesse and kentucky, so i would think they plan to expand.When i got out of the military in 2006 and moved back here to iowa they bought out most of the other local gas stations, and they now have about 75% of the market here. What my question is, all the info that is in this thread says to not buy this stock. It has a annual dividend yield of 1.15%, thats horribly low, buts its growth has been great in the last 10 years. I would personally not have a problem owning this stock as i can see what they are doing every day but they are not best of breeds, so does the growth out gain the lack of a decent dividend, or should i be looking at something else.

They have an interesting market over a normal gas station, they make some amazing pizza that for the most part is a home made on a large scale that is priced cheaper and taste better then your normal papa johns,pizza hut,dominos and other pizza places.Why i think they are planning to be around for awhile is they just started adding a deliver service of their pizza to help get in on the food market and make a move on the "main" pizza joints.Im not sure of any other business that does something like that. I just got into this investing game again some im just in the research phase for the next few weeks till i get game plan going. Not that im trying to find the next get rich stock but i think over the long term of 30+ years this may be one to get and wanted to know if my thinking is in the correct spot.

I should probably add that I would not have a large amount to invest, so this is where im thinking i should probably go with a better steady eddie as greg puts it to start out, till i get more into the account and can then take this mild "risk" as i look at it.

Personally - without doing huge research.... I think it would be a great stock for YOU. Here's why.


YOU (any individual) are a good judge for what a business is doing. If you shop there - and YOU like it - and you see what they're doing - and your friends like the place... Then those are good points. You'll also be the first to read when there's a change in the business that you DON'T like... so the minute you sense something wrong -- then it's a tip off that maybe others are just like you, and you then have a heads up on when to bail out. We would hope that doesn't happen of course. But use your gut feeling for a stock/company the same going UP as going DOWN... pay attention to those feelings.


Now -- remember we want TOTAL RETURN.....so we can offset the low dividend with a higher growth rate. That's what this stock is doing -- it's growing nicely - and that can make you more money than just a higher paying dividend stock. Nothing wrong with this "combo" of low dividend as long as it's accompanied with high growth.

Then use all the other things we've discussed here ---- don't put all your eggs in one basket --- work towards diversification --- pay attention --- but get started. :thumbsup:

Thank you for your input. I have another question. You suggested I start looking into a roth since im a lower income so I started looking into it. Ive managed to figure out most of what I need to know. Where Im confused is how to use the account.

How I understand the best way to use the account is I set up an automatic payment to the Roth account from my paycheck that ends up in the "cash fund", where the money will sit till I pick a place (stock) to put it in.It will only let me add to the account till I hit the cash cap limit. To limit the amount of fees I pay I should wait till I have a decent amount saved up to buy the stocks, say $1000 or wait till i have $1500 to scale in. Then continue to do this every $1000-$1500 till I retire.

Where my confusion is that once the money goes into the account any growth inside is tax free. Well what happens if you end up with a crappy stock that has losses for 5 years in a row or zero gains and you have to sell. That money will now go back to the "cash fund" but will still be in the roth account, does this sell if there was any gains or anything of that sort have to have taxes paid on it since I will be below retirement age, and will it be part of my yearly money cap for what im allowed to put into the account.

I read that im allowed to pull out my contributions at anytime without tax or penalties, but Im wondering what is considered pulling out? I would think that would only be money pulled out of the actual account and into a bank and not the cash that could possibly be bouncing around in Roth account. Im not wanting to do that since im aiming for long term but i want a solid grasp of what im doing and what could possibly happen while im planning my attack.

These are questions that should only be discussed with your accountant -- or someone that is clearly qualified to help you with those questions. Don't take advice on tax questions from just anyone that "thinks" they know.


I've never had a ROTH account (I don't qualify) so I have only a very basic knowledge of how they work.

You have very good questions by the way.

I am pretty sure you have until "tax day" to fund a ROTH.... at least that's the way it used to be... In other words you had until April 15th to fund "last years (the taxable year) account". But here again -- seek some professional help with these questions. Taxes are complicated and can really trip you up down the road - just when you "thought" you were doing things right.

I can still remember finding out (many years ago) about the "wash sale" rules.... Oh yeah! That cost me big time!

thanks for you help again, i guess i prolly should set up a meeting with someone to get some of the these questions answered. Im able to figure out most of what i need, and I will be setting up the payments to the roth directly from my paycheck a little at a time that way the money gets there. Ive found out that if I dont do direct payments to my stuff I tend to forget to do them or tell myself ill do it later and just add extra money to the next payment and we know how that goes for most people.

You're welcome Silvermonte. Taxes are too "personal" as in there's too many rules etc that apply to the individuals personal tax situation. That really needs to be gone over with a "tax professional".

I also agree that most people benefit from automatic deductions. You get accustom to the new net and never miss the deduction.

If you read this thread -- you'll run into discussions that are critical to you.. you "sound" relatively young -- and time is on your side. Starting this strategy EARLY is the sure way to success even if you're only a mediocre investor. Much of the focus of this thread is about just being the steady "tortoise" that wins the race.

I don't know about the rest of you guys -- but if you invested in ANYTHING even as little as 6 months ago -- you should have nice gains by now!!!!


Okay -- but really -- this is the most amazingly easy market to have invested in that I can remember since 1997/98/99.... I used to get up in the morning - buy half a million bucks worth of Dell and of Microsoft and of Cisco -- an hour later I'd sell them UP 50 cents a share - and go off and play golf or work on something in the shop. It was so easy that baby in the E*Trade commercials could do it! Well.... I feel the same way about this market.

Here's going to be my point though.... it's almost too easy. And if you're just starting out... your sense of "the market" is going to be that you just put money in and it grows every day. Trust me when I tell you that this is not NORMAL! But it's markets like this that can make you some real gains --- and then there's markets that go down every day -- and they just cut you a little bit every day again and again and again. "The death of a 1000 cuts". YOU'LL need to remember these fantastically good times -- when the poo market does (and it will) comes around.

Here's the way I look at this ---- and the charts will confirm it.... If you have a run and are up 50%.... and then we get into a period where we go DOWN 20%.... Your down 20% is off of the UP 50% so you're still ahead... Think of it like a person that bought a house 25 years ago... and it tripled in price -- then went down 40%... they're still WAY ahead! And when it comes back (like it has in many areas) they'll be back to near their triple. Are ya gonna cry for them? NO!

The savior in a down period -- is that dividend is buying more shares at cheaper prices... and when the market comes back - you'll have a better return on those shares.

I just don't want people to think they're somehow brilliant investors and that they should hawk everything they have to invest in the market. Just keep doing what you're doing because there will come a time when you're going to be thinking -- WHY THE HELL DID I LISTEN TO THAT IDIOT WELD!?!?! And then the sun will come out and all will be good again. Hard to believe that when it's all going badly --- just as it is when things are going so friggin' well like they are right now. :G-Dub: :thumbsup:

Oh, I know I'm not a brilliant investor. That little man who likes to kick people kicked me on my gamble choice, lol. It went down just a touch the day after I bought. Nothing serious at all but funny none the less. Oh well, the buying power of the dividend payment might just buy me even more than I had planned on originally. I do like the streak KO is on though. Wonder if these soda bans are having the same affect on KO that the gun/ammunition scares are having on gun stocks and profits. Maybe everyone's stock piling two liter bottles and mega-cups just in case the worst happens. I wonder is Solo cup is publicly traded :lol:

The beauty of Coke (KO) is to pull up a "all" chart..... look along the bottom and see that it has SPLIT FIVE TIMES since 1986.... Yes that's a long time ago - but if you were just 33 years old in 1986 (like I was) and you'd bought 100 shares.... You'd now have 4800 shares and that's if you never re-invested the dividend!

Bitcoin

discuss.

Did a quick read on it from their wiki... a little to high tech for my likes. Being in the tech industry and see what can/will/does go wrong is a little scary. lol

It's takes some research to wrap your mind around it, but it's all open source, uncontrollable by anyone other than the market who is buying into it and trading it. It's certainly nothing that has ever been done before.

I knew about 2 years ago when a bitcoin was .02 each. I didn't listen.. kicking myself now! They are worth $77 dollars today and are climbing due to the EU/euro/Cyprus stuff.