December 2013 - The Dividend Ninja

Is the Stock Market in a Bubble?

Written by Ben Carlson Investors seem to carry emotional scars from the dotcom bubble in 2000, and the debt bubble of the 2008 to 2009 Financial Crisis. Both bubbles caused massive losses for investors. Hindsight bias causes us to look at past events and assume they were much more predictable than they actually were at the time. It’s the “I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.” Since those crashes are so fresh in our memories, we are now subject to knee jerk reactions. Any time an investment rises in substantially in price we hear a chorus of bubble calls. Morgan Housel of the Motley Fool …

What’s In Your Portfolio?

by Dividend Ninja

A few weeks ago, Mark reached out me to let me know he was starting a new series on his finance blog, My Own Advisor. The series was going to discuss the portfolios and investment strategies of various bloggers and financial experts. He called the series What’s In Your Portfolio? Mark wanted to ask various bloggers and financial experts what’s in their portfolios. More specifically, he wanted to find out what their investing goals were, learn about their investing strategies, and uncover some of their portfolio holdings. Mark asked me if I was interested in partaking, and of course I …

Go Global for Higher Yield Dividend Stocks

by Ben Carlson

Written by Ben Carlson One of the biggest fears investors have right now, is that interest rates will rise substantially from their current historically low levels. Many believe this inevitable interest rate increase could lead to the underperformance of dividend paying stocks. Bonds are directly impacted by an increase in rates, but other income producing investments such as REITs, preferred stocks and dividend stocks could also be adversely affected. See my previous post – The Risks of High Yielding Investments. Since bond yields have been so low for so long now, dividend stocks have enjoyed a strong rise and have probably …