I’m pleased to announce I am able to share my PowerPoint slides and handout notes from my recent presentation… This presentation is from the Take Control of Your Financial Future Seminar, held on Saturday April 20th, 2013, at the University of British Columbia. The seminar was sponsored by the Canadian MoneySaver. On behalf of Canadian MoneySaver, I would like to thank those who attended the seminar! I’d also like to thank CMS for the opportunity, permission to share my slides, and to those who came up and talked with me during the breaks. It was a pleasure to meet CMS readers! My presentation was titled: Sell Your Mutual Funds: Buy Index Funds and Dividend Stocks, and Start Making Money Now! The presentation was divided into four parts: Part 1 – Mutual Fund Fees and Performance Part 2 – Build Your Own Mutual Fund Part 3 – Buy What the Funds Buy Part 4 – Making the Switch You can download my presentation slides and notes at: Now available to newsletter ...

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The following is a guest post by Ben Carlson from A Wealth of Common Sense “Compare this with a 50% drawdown in stocks in the past bear market and you can see that bonds and stocks do not have the same characteristics for loss.  Interest rates would really need to spike higher in a very short period of time to equal stock losses.  And unfortunately, rates can stay low for long periods of time.” Introduction With interest rates at generational lows, investors are in search of yield.  The 10 Year U.S. Treasury is currently yielding around 1.7%.  As late as 2006 the 10 Year yielded over 5.0% and in 2000 it was over 6.0%.  By keeping short-term interest rates pegged at basically zero, the Fed is forcing investors to reach for yield and move out further on the risk spectrum. Stocks have been a huge beneficiary of this interest rate policy.  Since the lows in 2009, stock markets around the globe are up over 100% in many cases.  Bonds have also performed well and now have lower ...

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The Dividend Guy has been very generous. He has provided me an excellent guest post for you over on The Dividend Pig. The post is from a chapter of his new eBook, and is titled: Four Quadrants for a Better Understanding of Your Portfolio. It’s a great post with an easy to use analysis that will help you become a better investor. It will help you become more informed about the dividend stocks you purchase. That analysis involves the use of quadrants. The material comes from Mike’s new eBook, Dividend Growth: Freedom Through Passive Income. In this article, Mike uses quadrants to analyze and compare:  dividend yield, dividend growth, and payout ratios. He shows you how to apply quadrants in comparing these ratios. It’s not overly complex, and when you see the methodology, you will quickly realize how effective of a tool it is to help you initially select quality dividend stocks. From his new eBook, Mike writes: Quadrants have been used over and over for several purposes. Companies ...

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In my mid to late 40’s, my focus of late has been more on planning for retirement and how I will generate a consistent monthly income to fund my retirement. I find myself in between the need to increase my portfolio through capital appreciation, but also for the need to generate monthly income in retirement. I can take early retirement nine years from now, and I fully plan on doing so! What I will need at that time is monthly income. I’ve weighed the pros and cons. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m better off creating a stable portfolio of monthly income, through dividend stocks and bond ETFs. I feel this is more beneficial for me, than trying to hedge my bets on where the markets might or might not be nine years from now through indexing. Right or wrong, it’s a personal decision I’ve arrived to through my own investing experience. The bottom line is I prefer to hold shares in companies directly, rather than a basket of stocks in an index. Although Index ETFs such as XIU ...

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The following post is written by Hank Coleman at MoneyQ&A. A dividend can actually be a huge red flag depending on where the company gets the money for it. If you know what to look for, a company paying or increasing its dividend is not always a good sign. How does your favorite dividend paying company get the money for those annual or quarterly payments? Have you seen the statement of cash flows and income statement? Do you bother to dig deep to learn as much as you can about the companies that you are investing in? You definitely should take the time to understand where the money is coming from. You need to know the balance sheet, statement of cash flows, and income statement inside and out of companies you potentially want to invest in. Anything less than thorough due diligence can leave you vulnerable. Here are two examples of companies issuing or increasing their dividend when they possibly should have considered other options. Rising Dividends And Sinking Revenue Investors love ...

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