re: Quetion About Buying Stocks For First Time

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