* Passing the Torch - Part 2 of 2

Yesterday in part 1 of Passing the Torch, I posted the story of Jack and Jill's journey to retirement. The synopsis of the story is that Jack contributed less than one-third of what Jill contributed toward retirement, but his final nest egg was over twice as large.

* Passing the Torch - Part 1 of 2

An important goal for me is to train my children (12 and 10 years old) about personal finances and investing. For some odd reason their eyes glaze over whenever I start talking about NPVs, DCFs, IRRs and calculating a compound annual growth rate using a logarithmic function in Excel (go figure!). It took a while, but I finally learned that they respond to stories. Given that, I have used stories to foster their interest in personal finance and investing.

* Stock Analysis: INTC Intel

Linked here is a PDF copy of my analysis of Intel Corporation (INTC) (alt.1, alt.2). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:

* D4L Channel Preview (1/20/08)

This week on the D4L Channel we will look at an industry leading juggernaut and determine if Big + Powerful + World Leader = Good Dividend Investment? This champion is often attacked, but rarely defeated.

* Tech Stocks in a Dividend Portfolio?!

This week I am going to move things around some and defer the Stock Analysis to Tuesday and use today's post as a lead in.

* Upcoming Shows on the D4L Channel - Jan. 27, 2008

[que deep, male, "announcer" voice]
This week on the D4L channel...

* Pre-Screening Dividend Stocks - Epilogue

In Wednesday's article "Pre-Screening Dividend Stocks - Part II", I posted a link to [D4L-PreScreen.xls]. This was a cleaned up version of a tiny section of my two massive financial spreadsheets.

* Weekly Carnival and Article Review - Jan. 25, 2008

Each Friday I highlight the Carnivals I participated in over the past week, along with any notable articles that I come across. For those readers not familiar with carnivals, it's where personal finance bloggers submit their best articles of the week with one blog serving as the host. The entries are separated into various categories such as Investing, Credit, Debt, Budgeting, Frugality, Wealth Building, Money Management, Financial Planning, Insurance, Taxes, The Economy, Real Estate, et. al.

* Pre-Screening Dividend Stocks - Part III

Last Updated: August 22, 2009

This post provides several examples on how to use my D4L-PreScreen.xls model for prescreening dividend stocks. I have tried to select a diverse group to cover multiple outcomes. For your convenience, all the sample data is included on the Database tab. I am assuming you are familiar with Excel and are comfortable with basics such as copying, pasting, entering data, etc.

* Pre-Screening Dividend Stocks - Part II

This post has been updated. Click here for the newer version.

As I have mentioned before, my entire financial existence is contained in two massive spreadsheets. From these spreadsheets, I have extracted the portion that I use for pre-screening dividend stocks. It is linked on the tools page as D4L-PreScreen.xls. The file contains the following tabs:

* Pre-Screening Dividend Stocks - Part I

When done correctly, a thorough quantitative and qualitative evaluation takes a significant amount of time to complete. Most stocks are not worthy of that level of evaluation. So how do you know when a stock deserves further evaluation?

* Stock Analysis: WMT Wal-Mart

Linked here is a PDF copy of my analysis of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT) (alt.1, alt.2). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:

* Investing In What's Important

It is no secret that I work too much and don't spend as much time with my family as I would like. Several weeks ago I learned that my 12-year old daughter had been selected to represent her class at homecoming.

* Weekly Carnival and Article Review - Jan. 18, 2008

Each Friday I highlight the Carnivals I participated in over the past week, along with any notable articles that I come across. For those readers not familiar with carnivals, it's where personal finance bloggers submit their best articles of the week with one blog serving as the host. The entries are separated into various categories such as Investing, Credit, Debt, Budgeting, Frugality, Wealth Building, Money Management, Financial Planning, Insurance, Taxes, The Economy, Real Estate, et. al.

* Is It Time To Upgrade Your Portfolio?

From an investing standpoint, there is nothing I enjoy more than beating the S&P 500. As noted in my Process Overview and Asset Allocation article, approximately one-third of my taxable portfolio is invested in Mutual Funds. I have a small amount invested in Vanguard's S&P 500 Index (VFINX). I use this fund as my benchmark - if I can't beat it over time this is where I need to put my money. The fund I have invested in for several years is The Davis Selected American Shares Fund (SLASX). Between 1993 and 2006 it out performed the S&P 500 in all but 4 years. 2006 was one of those four years and it looks is if SLASX will under-perform in 2007 (4.79%-SLASX vs. 5.39%-VFINX).

* Sometimes Being Right Is Just Wrong

Sometimes events in our life require a change from the norm. This week, I need to interrupt my normal posting schedule and move the main article from Wednesday to Thursday to make room for today's post.

* When Is A Lot of Cash A Bad Thing?

A November 2007 article in CFO titled "The Cash Trap" had a lot of information that a dividend investor would find interesting. The article takes a case study approach and looks at Terex, a S&P 500 company. Terex's total shareholder return (TSR) ranks sixth in the S&P 500 (excluding financial institutions) over the past five years, based on an analysis done by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

* Stock Analysis: KO

Linked here is a PDF copy of my detailed analysis of The Coca-Cola Company (KO) (alt.1, alt.2). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:

* This Week On The D4L Channel (1/13/08)

Work has been challenging. We are still struggling to integrate the large acquisition I mentioned earlier, all while our 60-day clock on filing the 10-K continues to run. However, in my "spare time" I have been working on some posts for next week.

* My Thanks To All Those Who Have Subscribed!

Dividends4life hit a milestone on Tuesday - The 100th person subscribed to my feed! The growth over the last month has been phenomenal, as illustrated in the graph below:

* Weekly Carnival and Article Review - Jan. 11, 2008

Each Friday I highlight the Carnivals I participated in over the past week, along with any notable articles that I come across. For those readers not familiar with carnivals, it's where personal finance bloggers submit their best articles of the week with one blog serving as the host. The entries are separated into various categories such as Investing, Credit, Debt, Budgeting, Frugality, Wealth Building, Money Management, Financial Planning, Insurance, Taxes, The Economy, Real Estate, et. al.

* New Tool For The Toolbox

Jake at The Dividend Investing Blog has coded a New Dividend Tool. Jake described it as such:

* Sometimes Things Aren't As They Appear

This is the third and final post in a series that began on Monday. If you haven't read the earlier posts you may want to take a look at them here:

* Stock Analysis: GE

Linked here is a PDF copy of my detailed analysis of General Electric Company (GE) (alt.1, alt.2). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:

* Stock Analysis: C

Linked here is a PDF copy of my analysis of Citigroup Inc. (C) (alt.1, alt.2). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:

* Coming Up on the D4L Channel...

I am putting together a 3-part series (of a sort) for next week. The first two days I will present two extreme stock analyses on two high-profile companies. Day two will take us where we have not previously gone (Hint: limbo - how low can you go). The third day I will hopefully pull it all together and introduce some additional content on The Process...

* Progress Update - Dec. 2007

December has come and gone and that means it is time for a goals/progress update. My goals were defined in this December 1, 2007 Investing Goals post. Below is an updated version of the table found in the original post.

* Weekly Carnival and Article Review - Jan. 04, 2008

Each Friday I highlight the Carnivals I participated in over the past week, along with any notable articles that I come across. For those readers not familiar with carnivals, it's where personal finance bloggers submit their best articles of the week with one blog serving as the host. The entries are separated into various categories such as Investing, Credit, Debt, Budgeting, Frugality, Wealth Building, Money Management, Financial Planning, Insurance, Taxes, The Economy, Real Estate, et. al.

* Current Posting Schedule

Over the last couple of months I seem to have developed a rhythm in my postings. This de facto schedule appears to be working well. It is, as described below:

* Fishing in the Bathtub

So you want to catch a really big fish? Have you considered fishing in your bathtub? Probably not. If you want to catch a big fish, you have to drop your line where the big fish swim; and if you want to snag a superior dividend investment you have to go where they gather.

* 2007: The Year in Review

Year-end is always a good time to reflect on the previous years' investing experience and separate what worked well and what could use additional optimization. Overall, 2007 was not a banner year for a lot of investors, myself included. The sub-prime melt-down caused a lot of pain in my portfolio. Going into the year I was over-exposed to the real estate and financial sectors. I owned several mortgage companies of which a few were sub-prime. Needless to say that portion of my portfolio took a beating.