Book Review: The Vigilant Investor + MORE

In order to identify attractively valued dividend stocks, I follow a monthly screening process, where I go through the list of dividend champions and dividend achievers to look for bargains. In addition, I often stumble upon quality income stocks during my review of the dividend raises for the week or on an ad hoc basis through interactions with other dividend investors…

Visit StreetInsider.com at http://www.streetinsider.com/Dividends/Integrys+Energy+Group+%28TEG%29+Declares+%240.68+Quarterly+Dividend%3B+4.5%25+Yield/8348779.html for the full story.

 
 
On Monday, we looked at the toy industry with Mattel (MAT). Following up on this series, we will check out another important player in the industry; Hasbro (HAS). While Mattel is part of my Best Dividend Stocks for 2013, Hasbro was part of my selection for 2012. The company has been up by 32…

Standard & Poor’s currently gives United States Treasuries a credit rating of AA+, just below the maximum AAA credit rating (the other two major ratings agencies, Fitch and Moody’s, still give the U.S. their highest rating). Current Treasury yields are quite low, possibly reflecting a market view that U…

Rackspace is one of those stocks that I’ve had on my radar for a long time but have struggled to get a solid opinion on. I have made comments during my Tech Stock Power Rankings (2012 and 2013) but have not been able to get enough of a sense to trade it. There are many things to like and dislike about the company:
Pros:
-Operates in the high growth cloud computing business
-Revenues and earnings per share have climbed steadily for years
Cons:
-Competes with the likes of Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG)
-Being unable to compete on prices, it’s stuck trying to find other ways to generate value
-Trades at a high P/E
In the end, it does seem overvalued…

So here’s the bottom line. Stock markets have had a good run-up this year. Long term investors feel stock prices are becoming overvalued, and investors who bought equities this year are getting nervous. So what’s an investor to do? Sell in May, sit on cash, or just keep buying great companies with a long term view? That’s exactly what I had in mind with this weekly lineup…

The Vigilant Investor (2011) by Pat Huddleston This book deals with various kinds of financial fraud and was written by a former SEC enforcer who currently heads an agency that investigates such matters. Drawing upon his personal experiences as an investigator, the author explains how different investment scams work (e…

In the latest look at stocks ordered by largest market capitalization, Russell 3000 component Old Republic International Corp. (NYSE: ORI) was identified as having a larger market cap than the smaller end of the S&P 500, for example WPX Energy, Inc. (NYSE: WPX), according to The Online Investor. Click here to find out the top S&P 500 components ordered by average analyst rating »

I turned 31 over the past week! Yikes. I’m now closer to 40 than I am 20. Sigh…

I’m getting older. But I’m also getting wiser, and as such I’m getting better in almost all facets of being a human being. I find that with age comes the wisdom and patience necessary to face many of life’s problem’s rationally and thoughtfully…