re: buy and hold?

google read about dividend growth investing jimbeam, its a very powerful concept of companies that have grown dividend year over year for a very long time.Take your job for instance, do you get a 10% annual raise? Well as an owner of coke,exxon,pm,chevron, etc you would get an annual increase in your income(dividend) in that range for the most part year over year.

Mcdonalds for instance grew its dividend on average 20%+ annually for the last decade....think about that if you made a 20% increase in your income on average each year over the last decade. This would keep you well ahead of inflation income wise.

Great site to see companies dividend history

LINK

Great site to backtest stocks and potential worth today with div's reinvested...really look at coke $1000 in 1990 and adding $100/month would give you $93k today....thats how powerful dividends are

LINK

Google a list of dividend titans, dividend champions and you will see these companies that boost their dividends every year, in good times and bad. Of course there will occasionally be that eastman kodak blue chip that collapses, but thats why holding a basket of these is safe enough if one somehow collapses. I personally made my pick of of phillip morris and im swinging for the fences, if you can even call it that for a company with a 100+ year history.

This is a link of a dividend growth investor I saw on good morning america, the guy makes like $30k/year or less and has been saving, reinvesting dividends and plans on retiring by 40 with a $400k or so portfolio which with dividends would probably allow him to earn the same income he makes now well minus the savings part bc thats taken care of with his balance and enjoy his life....great story.

LINK