Words Much Like Poetry: Sight the Inspiration

Sat, 09 May 2009 22:45:00 -0400

Image: Ansel Adams, McDonald Lake, Public Domain

Words Much Like Poetry: A Quote Besides

Sat, 09 May 2009 22:19:00 -0400

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Kikuyumoja's realm: pls enjoy

jke — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:34:03 -0400

[via]

(i love tumblr blogs)

Kenyanentrepreneur.com: Our Drunken Finance Minister

kenyanentrepreneur — Sat, 09 May 2009 10:25:56 -0400

You know, sometimes, I want to feel sorry for Uhuru Kenyatta because I think that he’s been thrust into a life which he neither desired nor wanted and because of this, he’s never really prepared himself for the situation he is in today. He spent his youth drinking, womanizing and partying, not reading books on [...]

Kikuyumoja's realm: News/Death ratio

jke — Sat, 09 May 2009 07:50:56 -0400

I’ve started sharing links to videos and other interesting stuff on Facebook, Twitter and/or Delicious.com and often only use my blog for my own content (partly because I actually dislike reblogging someone else’s content), BUT! Daktari Hans Rosling of gapminder.org is a smart man with an important message:

I sometimes wish proper sanitation would have the same media attention.

KA-INVESTOR: Dividend Hunting at the NSE

Sat, 09 May 2009 00:59:00 -0400

Over the recent weeks NSE firms have been releasing their full year results for 2008 and most of them have announced dividends for their shareholder. In this bear NSE the only thing we have now is dividends that we can take advantage of. In developed markets its called dividend investing, which focuses on identifying solid companies with a record of growing dividends each year and buying their stocks expecting that it will continue declaring dividends.

One thing that investors need to know when dividend investing is that it’s particularly different from normal value investing, where one invests in a stock considered undervalued with an expectation that it will rise to its true value or higher. And a combination of the two can yield some very good results:

Dividend Investing + Value Investing = Great Returns

Dividend investing focuses on identifying solid companies with a record of growing their dividends each year; and an expectation that it will continue into the future (almost speculative). This sounds so short sighted, but history has proved that stocks that pay constant/growing dividends have always out-performed those that don't.

Dividend investing is usually associated with the bear market since dividend yields are considered relative safe in down markets.

Signs of a Dividend Stock

There are several things to look out for in a stock before considering it a dividend counter:

Dividend yield doesn’t mean much. dividend yield (annual dividend divided by the current stock price) simply indicate if the stock price is low or high, which is based upon current stock price and historical dividends thus not capturing the actual facts at a particular time.
A company that has a history of paying a consistently growing dividend is better than one that pays a consistent, but steady dividend. And the consistent but flat dividend is better than a company who has had to cut its dividend.
Cash flow is King. When it comes to dividend investing net income does not mean much. Cash pays dividends so operating cash flow per share is more important. Consistency of the cash flow is also important. A company that generates a steady or growing operating cash flow is better able to fund a dividend than a company that cannot consistently generate cash. A company’s dividend coverage ratio (operating cashflow per share divided by the expected annual dividend). If this ratio is 1.0 or better, there can be a relatively high degree of confidence that dividends will be paid in the foreseeable future.
The stronger the balance sheet the better. Stronger here meaning less bank debt. A company with no bank debt has a stronger balance sheet because it can borrow if necessary to support operations and the dividend if need be.