Weekly Links: December 16, 2012

Each Sunday I highlight the Carnivals I participated in over the past week, along with any notable articles that I came 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. Below are the carnivals that I participated in this week, along with a link to my article:

• Carnival of Personal Finance published: Dividend Investors Should Focus On Stocks, Not The Market
• The Wealth Builder Carnival published: This Comapny Is Spicing Up Its Dividend With Another Increase

Articles I enjoyed reading included (in no particular order):

- The Dividend Guy presented Fortis FTS Dividend Stock Analysis
- Dividend Monk presented Railroad Stocks Appear Attractively Valued Across the Country
- Disciplined Approach to Investing presented Fiscal Cliff Creating A Spike In Extra Dividends

The DIV-Net Featured Articles

• Stock Analysis: Hasbro, Inc. (HAS)
• TFSA Limit Increase
• Cisco: Switch To This Undervalued Dividend Growth Stock
• Norfolk Southern (NSC): Interesting Value
• Railroad Stocks Appear Attractively Valued Across the Country
• Abbott Laboratories Stock Analysis
• Recent Buy by Dividend Mantra
• My Second Job Isn't A Job At All

Articles from D4L-News:

Dividend Stocks Risk A Drop
The darlings of cautious investors are sitting on the edge of the "fiscal cliff" and feeling twinges of tax anxiety. Much to the surprise of some investors, dividend-paying stocks — sleepy investments like utilities — along with real estate investment trusts, and master limited partnerships, all have dropped in value since the presidential election. Nervous investors fear that all three could face higher taxes next year, and some have been selling high-yielding investments rather than wait for them to decline in value amid tax concerns later. Analysts say that after going through initial selling, dividend stocks should still be attractive...

High Yield Stocks Are Inferior
There is another reason why investors are too focused on higher dividend stocks. Many investors have the misconception that they should be living on interest and dividends or the like. They view interest and dividends as what-they-can-spend. In terms of your retirement portfolio, living on interest and dividends is an inferior approach. Your spending should be designed so you will not run out money of before you die. The best spend amount is...

Cheap Dividend Stocks Loved Hedge Funds
We have found ten cheap dividends stocks that hedge funds were in love with during the third quarter. Dividends play a big role in total stock market returns, hence the reason we have a special appreciation for those stocks that have solid dividend yields—especially in our current low rate environment. In a span that covers the last 30 years leading up to 2012, the Wall Street Journal notes that dividend-paying stocks have returned an average of 8.9% annually, compared to 1.8% for non-dividend paying stocks. We have ranked these stocks by the number of hedge funds reported to own these stocks at the end of the third quarter, from largest to smallest...

Citi’s Latest CDS-Screened Dividend Picks
Citi picks out global stocks with a market cap greater than $10 billion and a dividend yield at least 1.5 percentage points higher than median-yielding stocks. From these, Citi filters for companies that are also on top-tier financial footing as judged by the credit-default swaps market, specifically those with CDS spreads under 100 basis points (the lower the CDS, the lower the perceived credit risk). This month’s list includes...

Quality U.S. Dividend Stocks
U.S. dividend stocks that also offer quality and growth. Over the past few weeks, Craig McGee, senior consultant at Morningstar Canada, has provided us with a closer examination of some of Morningstar’s proprietary stock indexes. Today, we’re looking at the Morningstar U.S. Dividend Target 50 Index – a selection of 50 U.S. stocks that not only have high dividend yields, but score highly in a combination of other key factors that are indicative of a stock’s underlying quality and potential. Mr. McGee said that if the index is back-tested to Dec. 31, 1993, using a strategy of selling any stock that falls outside of the top 40 per cent of the overall CPMS database and rebalancing the index quarterly, the result is...


Click Here More Dividend News

There are some really good articles here, please take time and read a few of them.

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(Photo: Sachin Ghodke)