Member Articles

Dividend Increases for the Week Ending October 3

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending October 3. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week American Financial (AFG): now $0.25 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.22. AZZ (AZZ): now $0.15 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.14. Bank of the Ozarks (OZRK): now $0.125 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.12. Calavo Growers (CVGW): now $0.75 per share annual dividend, was $0.70. John Hancock Investments (PDT): now $0.09 per share monthly dividend, was $0.08. Kayne Anderson Energy Development (KED): now $0.52 per share … Read more

The Correction: Protection Makes Sense

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When our team thinks about members, the one thing we want for them is to make money from our service. This sometimes means that we’re a bit cautious at times. For example, taking profits on Ford (F), Precision Castparts (PCP), and Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) a couple days ago was not an easy thing to do. They’ve been huge winners. From a fundamental standpoint, we still like the companies, but market conditions and valuations cannot be ignored. Just like the profit-taking, we also think it was prudent to add protection in the form of put option contracts to the Best Ideas portfolio and Dividend Growth portfolio in light of a number of factors. The put option contracts amount to ~1.5% … Read more

The Correction: Markets Ease Thursday

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The S&P 500 brushed off a sluggish open Thursday, recovering through most of the afternoon following the close of European markets. We’re not particularly fond of commenting on daily market activity, but we want to make sure readers know that we’re monitoring the correction very closely to see if things could get much worse. There are a variety of factors that could make the markets even uglier: sliding energy prices (impact on Big Oil’s profits), Ebola outbreak (impact on airlines, hotels), Hong Kong (disruptions in Asia), European weakness (risks of weaker economic activity), ISIS and Russia (geopolitical uncertainty), and the list goes on and on and on (our seven are here). One very important voice from the crowd, however, is speaking … Read more

Three Huge Red Flags for the Airlines, Hotels

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The airline industry is a good barometer of global economic activity as it not only gauges leisure travel but also business activity. We picked up three important red flags recently that may weigh on shares of the airline group (and by extension the hotel space). For those that don’t know us, we’re not at all fans of the investment prospects of the airline industry, but nonetheless, we pay very close attention to airlines for unique economic insights. Read about our recent call on cyclicals here, in case you missed it. 1. Ebola. According to CNN, the first case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the US. Just like the SARS and West Nile virus before it, the news will likely … Read more

October Dividend Growth Newsletter Introduction

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Dear Member, The month of September represented some tough sledding for the markets, and we think things will get worse before they get better. If you missed our write up on the seven reasons why we think we’re due for a fall, please be sure to catch up on the piece here. We made a number of changes to the Dividend Growth portfolio since the release of the previous edition of the newsletter. Let’s make sure you didn’t miss anything. For one, yesterday, we added S&P 500 SPDR put option contracts to the portfolio to protect the large gains. Specifically, we added protection in the form of 5 put option contracts on the S&P 500 (SPY), with November 22 expiration … Read more