Utilities - Today's Best Bond Alternative [The Southern Company, PPL Corporation, Xcel Energy Inc] - Seeking Alpha

Utilities - Today's Best Bond Alternative [The Southern Company, PPL Corporation, Xcel Energy Inc] - Seeking Alpha: To refer to any stock or equity as an alternative to bonds or fixed income is sure to stir up the ire and consternation of many professional and individual investors alike who deem themselves prudent. Frankly, under normal circumstances I would tend to agree. But the nature of bonds and other fixed income instruments are not normal today. With today's extreme, and in the minds of many, contrived low level of interest rates, the risk profile of bonds and fixed income are far from typical. More simply stated, the currently extreme low level of interest offered by bonds and other fixed income instruments have dramatically altered, and I contend, increased their risk profile.

The Telecommunications Services Sector Untethered And Poised To Grow - Seeking Alpha

The Telecommunications Services Sector Untethered And Poised To Grow - Seeking Alpha: Suffice it to say that the Telecommunications Services sector of today is not your grandfather's Telecommunications Services sector. The explosion, and rapidly becoming ubiquitous implementation, of wireless technologies have been disruptive and game changing. As a result, the very nature of the established stalwarts within this industry have gone through an extraordinary metamorphosis. As wireline has given way to wireless, virtually every company in the Telecommunications Services sector has been forced to change their business models to align themselves with contemporary phone, Internet and cable offerings.

Dividend Challengers: 19 Increases Expected By October 31 [Yum! Brands, Inc., Accenture Plc, Covidien plc, Pall Corporation, A. Schulman Inc] - Seeking Alpha

Dividend Challengers: 19 Increases Expected By October 31 [Yum! Brands, Inc., Accenture Plc, Covidien plc, Pall Corporation, A. Schulman Inc] - Seeking Alpha: Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More...)

In compiling the Dividend Champions list (found here), I get to see which companies are nearing the anniversaries of their previous dividend increases. Since most of these firms raise their payout about the same time every year, I can say with some confidence that they are likely to do so again. I have modified the Expected Increase series to reflect a more SA-friendly format by separating the Champions (25 or more years of higher dividends), Contenders (10-24 years), and Challengers (5-9 years) into distinct groupings, so please look for the other articles, which I hope will be published about the same time.

Improve The Productivity Of Your Dividend Growth Portfolio With Technology - Seeking Alpha

Improve The Productivity Of Your Dividend Growth Portfolio With Technology - Seeking Alpha: Dividend growth investors seeking quality dividend growth stocks to fund their retirement portfolios have not historically looked to the Information Technology sector. Traditionally, the Information Technology sector has been associated with higher growth and higher risk. However, in addition to higher growth, many technology companies are also very cyclical in nature. Another common attribute for tech companies is how they have traditionally utilized their capital. In order to finance their high-growth needs, the majority of Information Technology companies have traditionally not paid dividends. Instead, they used their capital to fund future growth. However, another contributing factor to the no dividend policy of Information Technology companies was the nascent nature of this industry.

Buckets, Cisterns, Asset Allocation, And Retirement - Seeking Alpha

Buckets, Cisterns, Asset Allocation, And Retirement - Seeking Alpha: It is useful to be able to visualize what funding retirement is all about. Rows and columns of numbers on a spreadsheet are a great tool, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand columns.

This article provides an overview of three ways to visualize what's going on when you think comprehensively about all of your financial assets for retirement.

Understanding Stock Splits

Every now and again, companies will execute what is call a stock split or even a reverse stock split. It seems to create chatter amongst investors when a stock split is announced by the board of directors but the reality is that a stock split doesn’t change anything to the underlying company value. The company is worth exactly the same.

For example, take Company X which operates in the drink business and have a stock price of $100 and they have 1 million outstanding shares for a total value of $100 million. In any of the scenarios below, the value will stay the same:

Dividend Champions For August 2013 [Hershey Co, Shire PLC (ADR), Petmed Express Inc, Reinsurance Group of America Inc, Myers Industries, Inc., Computer Services, Inc.] - Seeking Alpha

Dividend Champions For August 2013 [Hershey Co, Shire PLC (ADR), Petmed Express Inc, Reinsurance Group of America Inc, Myers Industries, Inc., Computer Services, Inc.] - Seeking Alpha: The Dividend Champions spreadsheet and PDF have been updated through 7/31/13 and are available at http://dripinvesting.org/Tools/Tools.asp Note that all references to Champions mean companies that have paid higher dividends for at least 25 straight years; Contenders have streaks of 10-24 years; Challengers have streaks of 5-9 years. "CCC" refers to the universe of Champions, Contenders, and Challengers.

Is The Financial Crisis Over For Financial Stocks? [Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Wells Fargo & Co, AFLAC Incorporated, American Tower Corp, BlackRock, Inc., ICICI Bank Limited (ADR), Monmouth R.E. Inv. Corp., Vanguard Financials ETF] - Seeking Alpha

Is The Financial Crisis Over For Financial Stocks? [Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Wells Fargo & Co, AFLAC Incorporated, American Tower Corp, BlackRock, Inc., ICICI Bank Limited (ADR), Monmouth R.E. Inv. Corp., Vanguard Financials ETF] - Seeking Alpha: The cause of the financial crisis of 2007-2008, also known as the Great Recession of 2008, is attributed to many different theories. However, one of the most common theories is an easy money regulatory environment that led to an abundance of subprime loans, which in turn inflated real estate prices to bubble levels. Additionally, many blame the Financial sector, predominantly the money center banks, for exploiting the lax lending requirements with reckless and greedy behavior. They did this through the creation of and proliferation of high risk bundled subprime mortgages (CMOs, etc.) and the creation of other high risk and complex financial products that were being pawned off as safe investments.