Stocks Archives

The Ultimate Guide to Earning a 10% Rate of Return on Your Investments

Are you getting the best rate of return on investment? Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine annually discusses ways to boost your investment yield in its latest issue. I have to say that I am always pretty disappointed with their recommendations. I love the magazine, but I didn’t really care for a list of mutual funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). But, I wanted concrete ideas on how to earn a 10% annual rate of return on my investments. US Treasuries are earning less than 1% and money market funds are not fairing much better. Certificates of deposit are barely scraping by at 2% or so even for the longest maturities. But, are these levels going to last? The stock market has … Read more

Where Should A New Investor Put $1,000 To Work In The Market?

by Hank Coleman

I asked 12 of the best personal finance bloggers and money experts the best way to invest money to get an idea of where to start investing. “What is the best way to invest money for a brand new investor? Where should a brand new investor put $1,000 to work in the market?” And, I was not disappointed by their answers. Here are what they said… The Best Way to Invest Money for a New Stock Investor J Money from Budgets Are Sexy – It’s always hard to advise someone the best way to invest money without knowing them at all or their comfortableness with risk, etc, but I know for me (a riskier type of guy) I enjoy investing in stocks … Read more

Three Reasons You Should Love Dividend Stocks

by Hank Coleman

I love buying shares of dividend stocks that pay a dividend. Dividends are a great way for companies to give back their earnings to the company’s shareholders. In classic finance theory, a company’s stock share price is derived from the present value of its future income…its dividends. Paid to Wait for Dividend Stock Prices to Increase There have been instances of good companies that have been caught in a value trap, and their stock prices have tread water for years. Microsoft is a great example that immediately comes to mind. Microsoft continued to trade in a very narrow range for years before breaking out earlier this year. But, the one good thing for investors was that Microsoft has initiated a dividend … Read more

Why Good Companies Do Not Always Make Good Investments

by Hank Coleman

There is a difference between a good company and a company’s stock that makes a good investment. How do you choose and know when a good company may be a poor investment choice? How do you keep from falling in love with a company? These are some of the tricky questions that individual stock investors wrestle with.

Here are a few things to consider when trying to identify when a good company may be a bad investment.

The Right Stock Valuation

Classic finance theory states that the valuation of a stock price over the long-term is based on the current value of its future earnings (cash flows). So, what does that even mean? It means that a company’s individual popularity unfortunately does not always translate into higher share prices. Wildly popular companies can have next to no profits. Just look at the earnings of internet companies like Facebook, Yelp, Groupon, and the like. Far too often, they are more popular than profitable.

How To Using PE Ratio And Growth Rate To Find Cheap Stocks

by Hank Coleman

There are many different ways that investors use to try and determine a stock’s share price and what it is really worth. Typically, investors fall into one of two categories. They are either financial analysis investors or technical analysis investors.

Investors who use financial analysis use many means to price a stock’s shares. Two of the most popular methods are the price to earnings ratio simply called the PE ratio and growth rate.

What Is A PE Ratio? And, How Do You Calculate It?

A PE ratio is the value of the price of a share of stock divided by the company’s earnings per share. For example, if you look at one of my favorite stocks that I personally own, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (Ticker Symbol: DPS), its current PE ratio is 15.67 as of September 25th, 2011.

Three Things You Should Do In A Turbulent Stock Market

by Hank Coleman

Three Things You Should Do In A Falling Stock Market

There have been some turbulence in the stock market recently. There are been more days than not that have seen a hundred point swing one way or another. But, you shouldn’t fear a falling stock market.

So may even think that the US stock market is in a financial crisis. So, what is an investor to do during a turbulent, falling stock market?

3 Things To Do In A Falling Stock Market

Tune Out All Of The Noise

One thing that I do that many people do not understand is that I don’t watch the news. There is so much negative press out there that I often will get bummed out with all the news.

And, now with hundreds of television stations and many dedicated strictly for financial news, there are so many people out there with an opinion about a falling stock market. Everyone has an idea or a thought on where the market is headed, why things are happening the way they are, and of course what you should do. And, do nothing is hardly ever on that list.

It is hard to earn a commission or capture people’s attention if you tell them to do nothing. But, often that is exactly what you should be doing…nothing.

So, turn off the television. Tune out the noise. There is so much noise out there.