re: Quetion About Buying Stocks For First Time

Good info you have brought to this thread

Matthew, you're a nice guy, I respect your opinion, but I've seen lots of your posts asking for advice on mutual funds. Im a dividend growth investor, its a different type of investor, I dont panic when markets drop as my only goal is boosting dividend income. My risk tolerance is slightly higher than yours bc I own a couple convenience stores so even if my portfolio hit 0 in some SHTF scenario i'd still have income and the ability to rebuild

The reality is my 2 biggest holdings Philip Morris and MO make up probably 70% of my portfolio and not only do they combine to make up the best performing stock of the last 50 years, the fact that the US would have to double income tax to make up lost cigarette tax revenue is reason alone to buy altria, not to mention my intuition they will be producing marijuana before the decade is over....did I mention it pays a 5.2% dividend?

Philip Morris pays a 3.8% yield and is growing even faster with the rising smoking rates all over the world, and since they spun off they face no american legal issues and are actually the best play i can think of to capitalize on a falling US dollar bc they take all income in foreign currencies

Im in the gas station business, and I can tell you cigarettes aren't going anywhere my man, we sell more every month than the month before....trust me the US is bankrupt as could be, cigs are literally helping keep us afloat, google the master settlement

I have confidence in both to make up up 3/4 of my holdings

I dont own 30 businesses in real life, I own 4....so I don't have a need to own 30+ stocks....I own 6 total....diversification is silly to me, buy what you know, buy what you trust, buy what you see first hand....I did all 3 of those things my 6 holdings are

PM,MO,KMI,KO,WMT,MCD

and I use everyone of those businesses everyday, wouldn't invest in anything else. I shop for my stores @ sams(wmt),I sell cigs (mo,pm),one of my stores has a mcdonalds,I sell plenty of coke products, and Kinder morgan moves tons of stuff underground that I sell

As for walmart wow man you sold!?!? Just checked dividend history...walmart div is at 47 cents a share today up from 9 cents a share in 2003....a 500% raise in dividends?!?!?! I know i didnt get a 500% raise over that timeframe.Their 10 year dividend growth is 20%+ youre getting a 20% raise annually to hold, did you get a 20% raise at work? you panic and sell over share price which is irrelevant to dividend growth investors for the most part bc the income is what we seek in companies we know wont go bankrupt Matthew worldcom didn't pay a rising dividend my man, dividends are a sign of free cash flow...

like I said worldcomm and Enron were different. Enron, the price ran up abt 80%...the dividend abt 9% that was your warning flag bc solid div growth companies raise dividends tied to earnings and you can't fake a payout. Seriously Philip Morris payout is 65% of earnings in dividends...earnings doubled last few years so did dividend...earnings will be up 10% or so every year moving forward for the next 5 years so the dividend will rise accordingly....worldcom wasn't a dividend growth stock with a long history of payouts you're comparing apples to oranges

Worldcomm can go out of business and the world won't blink....if the world's largest cigarette producer which owns 7 of the top 15 global brands like philip morris went bankupt it would take an act of god. Cigarettes are a life staple for many people, and globally smoking rates are rising.....the barrier of entry is near impossible for new competitors.....worlcom was a telecom company, how many of those existed??? Again sorry about your sister but apples and oranges truly bc I doubt worldcom even paid a dividend

Meanwhile FYI just checked XLP dividend it seems ok, some yoy growth, but don't see any consistency ie there was no MARCH 2010 dividend paid...so that's scary to an income investor bc all the companies it holds pay a dividend so investors should have gotten one.....i use dividata.com btw