Standard & Poor’s publishes the widely followed S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index. This index ” measures the performance of large cap, blue chip companies within the S&P 500 that have followed a policy of increasing dividends every year for at least 25 consecutive years.” The index is composed of 51 companies and the five-year total …
Continue reading ‘Review: Constituents of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index 2012’ »
Last week I wrote an article discussing the dividend yields of U.S. and foreign stocks. To quote from that post: Though it is commendable that U.S. companies are increasing their dividend payouts, they still lag when compared to the payouts of foreign companies. Relative to their overseas peers, U.S. firms hold over one Trillion $ …
Continue reading ‘Performance of Dividend Paying Stocks At Different Tax Rates’ »
As the U.S. election campaign picks up momentum one of the favorite topics that will be discussed by politicians from both the parties will be taxes. By default Republicans favor lowering taxes while the Democrats do not. However both parties may be wrong with their beliefs. In general, where does the U.S. stand in terms …
Continue reading ‘Should the U.S. Lower the Corporate and Income Tax Rates ?’ »
Dividend yield should be one of the important factors when selecting a stock for investment. Dividend payments come out of a company’s earnings and is usually a strong barometer of a firm’s financial health. Unlike other metrics cash dividends are not susceptible to accounting or other manipulations. Hence consistent dividend payers and growers are excellent …
The chart below shows the Periodic Table of Investment Returns for individual countries in the emerging world from 2001 to 2010. The returns are based on the MSCI and S&P data: Click to enlarge Source: iShares Some observations: The frontier market of Peru was the best performing market in terms of 10-year annualized returns beating …