Product Description

Improve your investment returns with expert advice from the world's leading financial information organization

Investors are rediscovering the profitable advantages of dividend-paying stocks, due to the "bird in the hand" nature of regular dividend payments, dramatically reduced historical volatility, and the current reduction in the federal dividend tax rate. The Standard & Poor's Guide to Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks tackles all the key issues for adding the stability and performance of dividend stocks to your portfolio, providing hands-on techniques for identifying the best dividend-paying stocks and companies, using dividend tax law changes to improve returns, and implementing innovative dividend stock strategies.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #606299 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From the Back Cover

The powerful insider guidance you need to make dividend stocks a lucrative component of your portfolio

Reflecting their importance, dividends have historically accounted for more than 40 percent of the S&P 500 index's total return. Dividend stocks offer exceptional stability combined with long-term capital growth potential in every economic and market environment. For decades, dollar-smart investors have found them to be the ideal hedge against inflation and eroding earnings power. Highly regarded by the wealthiest, most knowledgeable investors, dividend stocks offer a solid financial opportunity once you understand the intricacies and pitfalls of investing in them.

The Standard & Poor's Guide to Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks provides you with a clear, step-by-step program for making dividend stocks the cornerstone of your portfolio. Here in a single definitive volume you will find:

• Specific financial and operational details you should look for when deciding on the best dividend stocks for you
• Capsule descriptions of seven stocks that recorded dividend growth of at least 250 percent from 1995 through 2005
• Listing of nearly 100 companies with dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs), along with websites, details, and Standard & Poor's rankings where available

Written in a clear, straightforward style by Joseph R. Tigue, one of the world's leading authorities on dividend investing strategies, The Standard & Poor's Guide to Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks offers proven, rock-solid guidance on making dividend stocks a cornerstone of your long-term investment strategy.

A long-accepted rule of thumb on Wall Street, as well as among investors of every size and approach, is that solid, dependable companies reward their investors with cash dividends. Dividend-paying companies offer tangible, bottom-line proof that they are here to stay, and not dependent on the whims of a volatile stock market. In addition, veteran investors have learned through experience that dividends are an ideal hedge against inflation and eroding earnings power.

Is it any wonder that, over the past century-plus, the majority of multimillion dollar stock portfolios have been built around dividend paying stocks?

The Standard & Poor's Guide to Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks is an authoritative, single-source guide to adopting dividend investing strategies that will pay you with substantial, lifelong rewards. Written by dividend investing authority Joseph R. Tigue and built upon the knowledge and resources of the investing experts at Standard & Poor's, the world's leading provider of investment facts and information, this ready-to-implement investment tool features:

• Techniques for uncovering companies that couple higher-than-average dividends with the ability to continue paying those dividends
• Typical income-paying stock classes, including utilities, financials, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), preferred stocks, and more
• Strategies for compounding and accelerating your equity growth through partial or full dividend reinvestment
• Convenient methods for buying a diversified portfolio of dividend stocks through mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs)
• Detailed strategies for successful dividend investing, including dollar-cost averaging and relative dividend yield

Regular dividend payments require that companies have consistent cash flow, which indicate strength. In an investing world that often seems heavy on earnings restatements and light on actual substance, dividends are the best proof of a company's stability and long-term viability. The Standard & Poor's Guide to Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks is your introduction to the profitable world of dividend investing, telling you what to look for and what to avoid when constructing a dividend-paying portfolio that is as reliable as it is profitable.

About the Author

Joseph R. Tigue is retired managing editor of Standard & Poor's financial newsletter The Outlook and a leading authority on the strategies and benefits of dividend investing. Author of The Standard & Poor's Guide to Long-Term Investing and coauthor of The Dividend-Rich Investor, his comments and insights have been featured in BusinessWeek and other financial publications as well as on various TV programs

Standard & Poor's is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research, data and valuations. An essential part of the world's financial infrastructure, Standard & Poor's has played a leading role for more than 140 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions.

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Customer Reviews

No Surprises...but Timely
An earlier version of this S&P Guide (The Dividend Rich Investor: Tigue and Lisanti, 1997) may have fallen on deaf ears. Investors were hungry for growth stocks with strong earnings in the last decade. Cash dividends were signs of corporate stodginess, a lack of vision, and they were fatly taxed as ordinary income. Many investors didn't want money in the mail. That was for another older generation of share owners. They wanted innovative companies in a rush to expand their market share and quick to buy back their own stock. They wanted companies to do headline deals and leverage their growth to score rich returns that could be realized at the investor's discretion when stock prices were dramatically higher.

In contrast the timing of this updated Guide could not be better. With the Tax Relief Act of 2003 most stock dividends 'qualify' for a low 15% maximum tax rate. Baby boomers, close to retirement, are beginning to look for cash distributions from their portfolios. 'Earnings' can be an accountant's definition, but dividends are cash in hand. Meanwhile corporations are now flush with cash and able to increase their dividends to investors.

A key point of this Guide is that investors are better off owning a modest dividend that is increasing at a rate that exceeds inflation versus a high current yielding investment. This may be intuitive to long term investors, but given a choice between a 2 or 3% dividend that is regularly increased or a 7 or 8% current dividend, I would have liked to have seen this case made more persuasively.

Tigue covers a range of investments and strategies designed to create income flow. Common stocks, mutual funds, REITS, Master Limited Partnerships, and ETFs get attention. He might also have mentioned Canadian oil and gas income trusts which have been around for twenty years, pay monthly distributions, offer diversification, and have appreciated smartly in recent years with the demand for these commodities.

There is not a lot that is new in this book, but it warrants a quick read from anyone looking for ways to generate income from their portfolios.

Note to editors: page 100, "IDX" should be "IDU". More importantly on page 95: "DVY does not pay out dividends to fundholders; instead the payments go toward buying additional shares of stock". This is not correct. DVY pays quarterly cash dividends. They are not reinvested. It is money in the mail to shareholders.

Disapointed
The book claims to be about dividends but the author covers a wide variety of topics - none well at all. He seems to have a difficult time staying on the subject of dividend stocks. I read two other excellent dividend books recently and comparing the three there was simply no contest. The only thing this book did well was list dividend stocks. I guess the author assumed if he listed the stocks then the reader would just buy 10 or 15 of these stocks and be satisfied. The problem is the author does not give a coherent system for picking dividend stocks, even though on the front cover he claims the book contains "Keys to selecting the Best Dividend-Paying stocks". He only mentions in passing the importance of how much a company grows its dividend from year to year. This is perhaps the single most important criteria when picking dividend stocks!
The most disapointing thing of all was the fact that Standard and Poor, an very credible and amazing organization, put its name and blessing on this book.
I did not learn anything about analyzing dividend stocks from this book.