Utility stocks pay some of the safest dividends around and typically sport much higher dividend yields than the market, reflecting their low growth prospects and making them a favorite source of income for retirees living off dividends. Many dividend investors wonder if utility stocks are in a bubble today after benefiting from extremely low interest rates for [...]
With the price of oil dropping more than 20% during the third quarter, CVX and XOM were both battered and more investors wondered if their dividends were safe. While each stock has recovered over 20% from its low reached in late August, the risk profiles of these oil giants are different. XOM remains one of [...]
From 2012 to 2014, CAT’s stock generated an annualized return of 2.8%, significantly trailing the market’s annualized return of 20%. Year-to-date, CAT is down 22% and lags the market by more than 20%. As the commodity super cycle fueled by China’s unsustainable infrastructure growth continues unwinding, it comes as no surprise to see CAT struggle over the [...]
AT&T (T) reports its first quarterly results including DirecTV this week. We think the cost synergies management expects to generate from the deal over the next three years are reasonable – greater negotiating power to buy content at cheaper rates, marketing synergies, more concentrated truck-rolls to service customers, supply chain benefits from set-top boxes, less [...]
EMR’s stock price has plunged by more than 25% in 2015. Many of the company’s markets are being impacted by falling oil prices, sluggish industrial spending trends, manufacturing weakness in China, and a strong US dollar. We believe the company’s dividend is very safe and will continue to grow each year, maintaining EMR’s status as [...]
GM has been nothing short of an extremely disappointing business (and investment) for more than a decade. Market share losses, chronically unprofitable operations, ballooning pension and healthcare obligations, safety issues, vehicle recalls, a massive government bailout during the financial crisis, and more have left investors’ skeptical of GM since its relisting in late 2010. More [...]
PM was spun off from MO in 2008, with MO serving the U.S. and PM retaining all international operations. With an industry as simplistic to understand as tobacco, there is temptation to assume that the major players are all similar enough to each other. As you will see, such an assumption is often dangerous...
Charles Dickens might as well have been describing the nature of highly cyclical businesses like CAT when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, [...]
As long-term dividend investors, beaten down dividend aristocrats always pique our interest. We often screen through the 150+ dividend stocks that have increased their dividends for at least 20 consecutive years, looking for those that have fallen out of favor. XOM has been one of the twenty worst performers on the list due to, you guessed it, [...]
AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) are two classic dividend income plays. However, not all dividend yields are created equal - differences in growth rates, competitive advantages, balance sheet health, and more can significantly alter the riskiness of a dividend and a stock's total return potential. While T and VZ might have looked fairly similar several years ago, they have started to diverge in a pretty significant way...