Ben Carlson

A Wealth of Common Sense is a personal finance blog that focuses on financial planning, investments, markets and investor psychology. You can use your common sense to help create a comprehensive financial plan. Ben Carlson, CFA helps manage the investment portfolio for an endowment fund and has been developing institutional investment strategies since 2005.

Are U.S. Dividend Stocks Overpriced?

by

Written by Ben Carlson US dividend stocks have had a great run.  They outperformed during the 2000-2002 bear market.  They held their own in the ensuing bull market of 2003-2007. They have also made great investments since the 2008 downturn and subsequent recovery. Since 2008, as measured by the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY), US dividend stocks are outperforming the S&P 500 by nearly 25% through the end of October. This is quite a nice run for an investment that is generally considered to be stable and long-term in nature.  Dividend stocks have also outperformed with much lower volatility than …

Read more

Time to Invest in Emerging Markets?

by

The following post was written by Ben Carlson from A Wealth of Common Sense. Baron Rothchild once said that “The time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets.”  Does that mean it’s time to start looking to rebalance into emerging markets? Investors have soured on emerging market stocks this year.  Growth is slowing in these countries, even though it remains higher than the developed economies. Inflation and volatility are rising, and the general sentiment is just plain lousy. No one wants to invest in the developing economies of the world right now.  I think this could be an …

Read more

SDY: A U.S. Dividend Aristocrat ETF

by

The following post was written by Ben Carlson from A Wealth of Common Sense. Reader Question: What are the best ETFs to invest in the U.S. Dividend Aristocrats? A reader asked this follow-up question in reference to the recent Hank Coleman post, What is a Dividend Aristocrat? The closest ETF to investing in the U.S. dividend aristocrats is the SDPR S&P Dividend ETF (ticker SDY).  This ETF tracks the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index (not to be confused with the Dividend Aristocrats Index).  As a refresher, this index holds roughly 60 of the highest dividend yielding companies in the …

Read more

Are REITs a Buy?

by

The following post was written by Ben Carlson at A Wealth of Common Sense. As interest rates have spiked higher since early May, many income producing investments have been hit hard.  Higher interest rates act as competition for yield hungry investors. This is one of the main reasons why high yielding investments have sold off since the rise in rates began a few months ago. The 10 year treasury yield has increased by almost 1.3% since the lows of May.  In that time, high yielding investments such as high-yield dividend stocks, preferred stocks, junk bonds and REITs (Real Estate Investment …

Read more