One of the things I like best about dividends is that they are paid in cash and thus impossible to fake. With that said, however, dividends can be cut or eliminated altogether if a weak company gets into trouble. Dividend cuts may happen if earnings plummet, debt covenants kick in, acquisitions are made and any number of other reasons. If you’re an investor who relies on dividends to supplement your paycheck or retirement, then the bottom line that you’ll have… Read More

One of the things I like best about dividends is that they are paid in cash and thus impossible to fake. With that said, however, dividends can be cut or eliminated altogether if a weak company gets into trouble. Dividend cuts may happen if earnings plummet, debt covenants kick in, acquisitions are made and any number of other reasons. If you’re an investor who relies on dividends to supplement your paycheck or retirement, then the bottom line that you’ll have less income to cover life’s necessities.#-ad_banner-# The best way to avoid a dividend cut is to limit your investments to financially strong companies that manage their cash conservatively. A key measure for this is the dividend payout ratio, which is the percentage of earnings the company allocates to cover dividends. Lower payout creates a safe cushion for covering the dividend even if temporary setbacks depress the company’s earnings. The great news for income investors is that we are in the middle of… Read More

Despite the long odds against them, many people are drawn to the oil and gas industry. Like gold miners in the gold rush days, they know that one big discovery could lead to wealth for successful drillers. Others see the promise of the industry but prefer to take on less… Read More

When assessing any stock, you need to weigh the risk against reward. Yet for Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) shareholders, it’s a challenging task. To be sure, it’s really hard to see how much risk there is when Apple’s net cash balance stands at $137 billion — and is on its way to $200 billion in a few years. Management has started dropping hints that shareholder-friendly moves are coming, which usually means stock buybacks or big dividend boosts.#-ad_banner-# Still, even as Apple carries relatively minor… Read More

When assessing any stock, you need to weigh the risk against reward. Yet for Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) shareholders, it’s a challenging task. To be sure, it’s really hard to see how much risk there is when Apple’s net cash balance stands at $137 billion — and is on its way to $200 billion in a few years. Management has started dropping hints that shareholder-friendly moves are coming, which usually means stock buybacks or big dividend boosts.#-ad_banner-# Still, even as Apple carries relatively minor risk, it’s not clear what kind of upside investors should expect either. As I noted a couple days ago, competition is gaining on Apple, which could lead to market share erosion and falling margins as price cuts ensue. Yet there is another major consumer electronics company that also carries a fairly low level of risk, but also offers the potential of significant upside. It’s a company that was the “Apple” of the industry before Apple took off like a rocket during the past decade. And it’s a company that… Read More

Despite the long odds against them, many people are drawn to the oil and gas industry. Like gold miners in the gold rush days, they know that one big discovery could lead to wealth for successful drillers. Others see the promise of the industry but prefer to take on less risk. This led to the business model of selling picks and shovels to miners. In the modern world, an updated version of that business plan is to provide data for the drillers showing them where oil is most likely to be found.#-ad_banner-# This data… Read More

Despite the long odds against them, many people are drawn to the oil and gas industry. Like gold miners in the gold rush days, they know that one big discovery could lead to wealth for successful drillers. Others see the promise of the industry but prefer to take on less risk. This led to the business model of selling picks and shovels to miners. In the modern world, an updated version of that business plan is to provide data for the drillers showing them where oil is most likely to be found.#-ad_banner-# This data is often difficult to obtain and requires specialized expertise to analyze. TGC Industries (Nasdaq: TGE) says they are “a leading provider of seismic data acquisition services with operations throughout the continental United States and Canada. The company has branch offices in Houston, Midland, Oklahoma City and Calgary.” This gives the company broad exposure to the oilfields that have traditionally dominated the industry. Expansion into the shale oil fields in North Dakota and other states not usually thought of as part of as oil patches is possible and could boost the company’s fortunes. Seismic… Read More

PC maker Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) kickstarted the era of affordable personal computers — and made many people very wealthy along the way. Then, it lost its way, eventually culminating in its recently proposed buyout. It’s hard to pinpoint precisely where Dell got… Read More

Editor’s note: Today we’re featuring a guest essay by one of the most successful financial publishers in America, Bill Bonner, the founder of Agora. Mr. Bonner recently launched a new venture, Diary of a Rogue Economist to share his 30+ years of… Read More

During the past 18 months, Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) army of software engineers worked feverishly to prepare for the tablet revolution. The company’s newest version of Windows was aimed at taking back lost market share from the likes of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Google (Nasdaq:… Read More

You know interest rates are low when your most conservative customers are looking to move out of the safety that certificate of deposits (CDs) provide and into dividend-paying stocks, which provide… Read More

As the European crisis unfolds, businesses and consumers are forced to cut back spending on all non-essential services. Having enough money to cover the basics is enough of a challenge. From phone service to mail delivery to electricity, there are certain regular expenditures that simply can’t be avoided. Yet European… Read More