Dividend Alert

If you haven't paid attention to the latest news on ARR well they just announced their dividend payments for the first quarter in 2013.  I have been ringing the bell on this stock this whole year.  Now it's even better than when I first started buying it.  The stock is at $6.64 as of the end of today, well below it's normal $7.00 range.  Let's just do the math... if you invest $10,000 you would have 1506 shares.  With a $0.17 MONTHLY dividend, you are making $256 a month just by owning the stock.  I'll let you decide...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/armour-residential-reit-inc-announces-210828981.html

Update:  I mistakenly read the first announcement.  The $0.17 dividend only refers to the PREFERRED Stock which is trading at $25 a share.  The common stock dividend is paying $0.08 a month.  Still a good investment.

I Am Not a Hype Investor

I am not a hype investor.  I’ve seen it many times over the years.  People get hyped about a stock because of a media buzz or worse…a social media buzz, and get taken advantage of after they put all this money in the stock.  Whether it’s a penny stock or one on the major exchanges, there are folks who are going to inflate the value of a company in order to jack up the stock price and then cash out off of everyone else’s expense who have put money in believing the hype.  I’ve been there, I caught the hype bug over a penny stock and it did go up for a day or so off of the buzz, then it tanked and I lost some money.  One of my friends lost more than I did.  Thankfully I didn’t jump in with any large amounts.  

Take your time and study the value of a company over time.  If there is no information about the company on the web, then I wouldn’t invest in it.  Let the big spenders and cowboys have the wild west.  I’m investing to build wealth for myself and my family.  I look for bargains when prices of stocks go down and get in on the upswing.  I also focus on dividends for monthly income and overtime the value of my investments has grown.  Have a long term plan not a short term get rich quick scheme.  This will help you continue to add value to your investment portfolio. 

Rich Dividend Investors Getting Out of Dividend Stocks

According to an article in Yahoo Finance, high income investors and dumping dividend stocks because of their fear of higher taxes on dividends with the re-election of President Obama.  This is a perfect buying opportunity for those of us that are not making over $250,000 a year.  The price of these stocks are coming down and will make them more affordable to buy larger quantities making the dividend yield more attractive. 

 

Here’s a link to the article:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-investors-dumping-dividend-stocks-175502252.html

Market update 11-12-12

Now that the market is selling off like crazy and even met the 200 period moving average I will say again what I said before… now is not the time to "play" the market.  There is entirely too much volatility and no one knows what the market will do on any given day.  The best bet is to buy up secure (and I mean secure) dividend stocks whose price fluctuations are not too large, and collect your monthly and quarterly payments.

Dividend stocks under $10 to watch:

AINV

BLC

DCT

HIMX

CIM

Binary Options

A buddy of mine turned me on to binary options recently.  It looks like an interesting way to play the market.  My basic understanding of it is that the time frame of expiration is reduced down to days or minutes and you have to decide whether the price will go up or down in that time frame.  The amount is not important, just the fact that the price went above or below your predicted price makes you money. 

To trade these without making it seem like gambling, you should watch the stock or currency to see what it does on a “normal” day to get a feel for the stocks tendencies.  I would definitely use all the regular techniques of moving averages, stochastics, MACD, Bollinger bands and volume to plan your entry and exits as well.

One company he checked out to handle the trades was Cedar Finance.  There are others out there that trade binary options.  He was focused on Forex and he made $200 the first few days trading around $50 at a time.  He lost all his gains however the following few days which should give you an indication of the volatility involved.  To be fair he is not a full time trader so I guess someone who watched the market more regularly could possibly make larger sustained gains from binary options.

Here's the website: 

http://www.cedarfinance.com/FAQ

Update 9-30-12

I know it’s been a while since I've posted.  I teach and classes started back up so I couldn't post that often.  Things have plateaued now and I'm able to post a little more frequently.
 
It’s been an interesting roller coaster of a couple months.  The Fed came out about quantitative easing which sent the market skyrocketing. Apple came out with it's new ipad which sent their stock skyrocketing.  Then people started questioning the effectiveness of the Fed's move and he market went back down again. 
 
I took a hit before all of these events on some of my option trades so cashed out the remaining value and put everything in my dividend stock ARR.  I think the best move at the moment is to pick several high-yield dividend stocks and then buy and hold for the remainder of the year.  No one knows what's going to happen to the market after the election so the best thing is to make your money work for you in the mean time.

Market Update 8-17-12

Sorry I’ve been away from my blog for a couple of days trying to get some other work accomplished.  We can a fantastic rally yesterday and there is a lot of strength in the market going into today.  Unfortunately I guessed wrong on my Walmart trade but that’s just how things go.  I normally don’t like to trade off of earnings because earnings are so subjective.  I just thought that Walmart would have better numbers going into back to school.  Oh well, I’ll hold my options and see if it rallies up next week.