Rising Stock Prices: Dividend Investor Paradox + MORE

I’m a huge fan of investing in stocks, as you can probably tell by my almost 100% allocation to the asset class in my Freedom Fund. More specifically, I’m very enthusiastic about investing in ownership stakes with high quality companies that have a history of rewarding shareholders by paying out a portion of profits via dividends…

In my dividend investing I
focus a lot on diversification. Proper diversification means that an investor
owns at least 30 individual stocks, representative of as many of the ten
Standard and Poors sectors as possible. Proper diversification also means that
investors do not simply purchase stocks in order to diversify their risk
however…

The following is a guest post from Ben Carlson at A Wealth of Common Sense. Ben writes about personal finance, investments, investor psychology and using your common sense to manage your money.  You can follow him on Twitter (@awealthofcs).
If you missed part one of my series on rising interest rates, please read What Happens to Bonds When Interest Rates Rise…

Visit StreetInsider.com at http://www.streetinsider.com/Dividends/CVR+Energy+%28CVI%29+Declares+%246.50+Special+Dividend%3B+9.6%25+Yield/8371407.html for the full story.

I arrived yesterday from my trip in New Brunswick. It was fun, but it rain most of the time I was there. I never saw such a rainy weather. It barely never rain for 4 days on a row in New Brunswick, but it did when I was there. My next go-away in new Brunswick will be at the end of July-beginning of August…

Morneau Shepell Inc (Toronto: MSI) has been named as a Top 25 dividend stock, according the most recent Canada Stock Channel ”DividendRank” report. The report noted that among the coverage universe, MSI shares displayed both attractive valuation metrics and strong profitability metrics. The report also cited the strong monthly dividend history at Morneau Shepell Inc, and favorable long-term multi-year growth rates in key fundamental data points.

As investors have increasingly turned to the stock market, I see many of them making a huge mistake: They overload their portfolios with traditional income groups like utilities and drug stocks, concentrating themselves in just two or three sectors and lacking any sufficient diversification. Don’t do that…

As an amateur investor I try to look for clues in the news to make a guess as to which way the markets could possibly turn. In 2012, it seemed like economic uncertainty in Europe kept the markets bouncing up and down each week. It allowed me to invest in stocks without worrying about paying too much…

In my quest to become financially independent as quickly as possible, I’ve been looking into many different types of passive income. Why? Because I’m trying to make sure that I depend as little as possible on having a full time job, on promises such as my government pensions, etc. I’m far from alone and I’m guessing that many of you are trying to do the exact same thing…