In this low interest rate environment, investors have turned to high-yielding blue-chips as a source of retirement income. This five-part series will outline what I believe to be the top five dividend aristocrat stocks, most suitable for a retiree’s portfolio. In… Read More

Exchange-traded products (ETPs) are wildly popular. Their assets grew more than 30% a year during the past decade, compared to just 5% to 6% for mutual funds, according to McKinsey & Co. The management consultancy projects ETP assets will more than double over… Read More

Last year was a record year for spin-offs, with deals worth an estimated $116 billion completed. There are even more expected in 2012. Spin-offs occur when companies want to shed units that are performing poorly, undervalued or unrelated to the main business. Instead of selling to a… Read More

“Safe” and “mid-cap” probably aren’t words investors use together very often, since mid-cap stocks are generally riskier than the stock market as a whole. For instance, if you invested in iShares S&P MidCap 400 Index (NYSE:… Read More

They’ve become wildly popular. Their assets grew more than 30% a year during the past decade. For comparison, mutual funds saw their assets rise just 5-6% per year, according to McKinsey & Co. And there are no… Read More

Sometimes it takes guts to be an income investor. A few weeks ago, the S&P 500 closed above 1,400 for the first time since May 2008, before the Lehman Brothers collapse led off the financial crisis. In total, the index has… Read More

The greatest demographic trend affecting the United States today is the aging of the baby-boomer generation. Many of the baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are beginning to retire. In fact, starting this year it is estimated that 10,000 baby boomers will retire every day. This means there… Read More

People often ask me about my most profitable investment. It was an investment I made in October 1999. Today, it pays me a yield equivalent to 26%, and it has forever changed how I look for income opportunities. Read More

In the 1994 investment classic The Warren Buffett Way, author Robert Hagstrom delves into great detail on the stocks that catapulted Buffett’s fortune into what it is today. In the chapter describing Berkshire Hathaway’s primary holdings, he quotes Buffett as saying “I find that a long-term familiarity with a company… Read More

Income investing has an unfair stigma attached to it. The conventional wisdom says invest in dividend payers — also known as “widow-and-orphan” stocks — if you’re just trying to stash your money somewhere. If you actually want to earn a decent… Read More