awashburn's blog

S&P came out Friday and downgraded France to AA-. So.  .  . they had France rated higher than the US.  Hmm.   .   .   Not sure if that questions S&P's credibility or underscores our significant fiscal problems at home.  Answer-BOTH.  It's a broken record but the debt continues to pile up and there really is no easy or palpable solution.  Europe and the US can do very little to over come this quickly.  Problem with Europe is those countries are tied together by the currency, but each country's debt is separate.

Sometimes I feel like a broken record, just a 45 as i only have one song.  (Please tell me you know what a 45 is.)  Buy Stocks that pay nice dividends, have good cash flow and low debt.  Oh, and NO FINANCIALS.  It's easy to get sidetracked with all the noise, political and financial.  Europe is in the tank and the emerging markets had a horrible year with several down 20+%.  Including dividends, the S&P 500 finished up 2.1%.   Still many companies did well, not the banks of course, although i hear their CEO's did quite nicely, gen

In the past week, Microsoft (MSFT) and Philip Morris International (PM) increased their dividends, 25% and 20% respectively.  Despite the large amount of cash both companies hold outside the US, each plans to use domestic deposits to meet these increases.  Both companies continue to buy back stock as well.

Since Hurrican Irene is rolling through the east coast, I figured I'd offer an update on a few stocks.  The market is still down around 5% this year but that doesn't mean you have to suffer along with everyone else.  There are always options worth discussing.

June 27, 2011

Taking a break from bashing Ben Bernanke, I thought i'd touch on different investment theme, based on a number of facts I've learned recently:  Emerging Markets.

I don't think too many of us are hog farmers.  But for those who are, costs have been going through the roof, of the barn, that is.  According to Smithfield Foods CEO, Larry Pope, "60-70% of the cost of raising a hog is tied up in the grains."  With corn rising from $2.40 a bushel to over $7.40, everything that uses corn has seen increases.   The Wall Street Journal points out that a pound of bacon costs $4.54 today versus $3.59 two years ago.  In case you don't have your calculator handy, that's an increase of over 26%.  Whew.  .  .I'm

In the past 12 months, over 70% of the companies in our model portfolio have increased their dividend.  The latest, and one of the largest, came today as Philip Morris International (PM) raised their quarterly dividend by 10.3%, taking the annual yield to 4.7%.  That's still less than former parent company Altria (MO) which yields 6.5% and raised its quarterly distribution in March.  Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Chevron and others also increased payouts in 2010.

Another summer week in the books and the typical earnings volatility is present, much as was in April.  However, this time it's been "one-step forward, three-steps back".  Banks and GE led the market lower for the week.  Financials were down nearly 3% for the week.  We've had nothing good to say about investing in the largest banks.  A 9% drop in Bank of America on Friday over-shadowed the great results from Intel on Tuesday.

I'm not sure what the next 3 months will bring but I'm happy we've said "sayonara" the the 2nd quarter.  Actually April wasnt' so bad, with the market reaching its high on April 26th.  Since then, it's been straight down, or at least it seemed that way.  From the "flash crash" on May 6th to the repeated 100-point declines in June, this quarter has been one to forget.  The situation in Greece and worries about a slowing China economy added to any angst investors were feeling about pending financial reform legislation and the Government's inability to handle the mountains