Asset Allocation

As a dividend investor, it is usually assumed that I love dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs). Truth is that I think they are a great thing to use to save investment costs. However, I have met a lot of investors who believe that the use of a DRIP is an investment strategy in itself as opposed to the means to an end that it is. Let me explain.[ad#tdg-embedded] What is a DRIP A DRIP is a plan offered by a company whereby a shareholder registers his/her share ownership directly with that …

Continue Reading about DRIPs Are a Means to An End, Not A Reason to Buy a Stock

The one thing that did the most to turn me off of mutual funds was their relentless marketing on how diversified they were. Invest in this mutual fund and you are diversified and safe - is what we often heard. All the while, mutual fund companies were charging enormous fees in the form of high MERs to do this. Sure many mutual funds provided good diversification but there was also this amazing alternative which involved simply buying the entire stock market through an index fund or index …

Continue Reading about Why ETF Marketing is Hurting Investors

Frank Armstrong calls it "The Glide Slope" and it refers to adjusting your asset allocation from riskier assets to less risky ones as you get closer to retirement. In this process we as dividend stock investors are all after The Super Efficient Portfolio[ad#tdg-embedded] The book, The Retirement Challenge by Frank Armstrong is a really good investment primer that covers and the concept I like the best is his approach to an asset allocation that gets adjusted regularly as you progress down …

Continue Reading about Taking the Least Amount of Risk – the Right Asset Allocation

I write a lot about my asset allocation on this blog. That is simply because it is the most important component of portfolio performance that an investor can work with. I keep very close track of my asset allocation in an Excel spreadsheet. If you have been reading the blog for a while, then you know that I have been slowing working on bringing my asset allocation more inline with my target allocation (here, here, and here).[ad#tdg-embedded] It has been slow progress, but I am happy to …

Continue Reading about My Asset Allocation Update

As a subscriber to Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, every once in a while I run across a piece of information that I find really valuable. In this month's edition, there was an article about hedging your bets and one of the topics was the impact if slightly reducing your equity exposure to reduce the volatility of your portfolio. Sure, you give up some future gains but the difference is not worth doing given the volatility and additional risk more equity exposure gives you. In the …

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