Weekly Dividend Investing Roundup - 2008 Financial Resolution Edition

Written by The Dividend Guy on November 30, 2007

Weekly Roundup

This weeks edition of the Weekly Dividend Investing Roundup will follow on from a theme started by Cash Money Life about Financial Resolutions for 2008. I want to present my financial resolution for 2008 as it relates to dividend investing:

What is my financial resolution? To increase the value of my dividend portfolio by $12,000, ending up with a value of $72,000 by December 31, 2008.

Every month I add approximately $700 to my investment portfolio, which means I will need to make up the extra $3600 in investment returns. That means I will need to achieve a 6% return on my money in 2008, which I think is realistic and achievable given the market we are currently operating in. I will be adding a sidebar item to track my progress as I strive for this goal. Watch for that soon!

My SMART Goal:

Specific - I have laid it out in black and white - I want to have $72,000 in portfolio value.
Measurable - I have $59,500 right now and will need to see the value increase by $12,000 to hit my goal.
Actionable - There are specific steps I can take to get there, including continuing on with my monthly contributions and ensuring my asset allocation is in line with my financial plan.
Realistic - I believe this is a realistic goal - it could be difficult if the market turns really sour, but my monthly contributions will help.
Timely - I have until December 31, 2008 to achieve this goal.

Now on with the weekly roundup…

Carnivals for the Week:

Carnival of Personal Finance at Stock Trading to Go

Other Articles:

We need to put the recent market action into perspective and not let it sway our long term investing goals. genXfinance provided A Visual History of the Stock Market From 1996 - 2007.

One thing I talk a lot about on this blog is ensuring you do your research before you buy any investment. Cash Money Life provided this lesson within the context of losing $1000.

I don’t know too much about exchange traded notes but this article at CNN provides some information on them - essentially they hold in the dividends to help an investor shelter their gains from tax. Sounds too complicated for me!

Awhile back I spoke about a Canadian index that tracks Canadian Dividend Aristocrats. They have finally released more information about it and Average Joe at Dividends Matter provides all us Canadian dividend investors with the scoop. My take - there are a lot of income trusts in there which are not dividend stocks.

I also speak a lot about international diversification on this blog and there appears to be a new index fund that tracks global dividend payers. Sun at The Sun’s Financial Diary gives us some insight into the Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index Fund.

There will always be a debate between passive and active investors. I use a bit of a hybrid, but if you are just starting out or do not trust your decisions, then passive investing is the best course of action. Everything Finance has a good description of what this is.

If you do participate in active investing, then you better understand how to value a stock - The Curious Investor has a good series of posts going the teaches you how to do just that.

The secret to wealth is hard work - I know I am putting in the work so the wealth better come soon! Check out Money Socket’s article on The Real Secret to Building Wealth for some justification for all this hard work you are doing.

Thanks to you all for the good articles and to all my readers - I appreciate your comments and input day in and day out!


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7 Comments so far

  1. The Political News You Need to Know » Weekly Dividend Investing Roundup - 2008 Financial Resolution Edition November 30, 2007 9:45 am

    […] Read the rest of this great post here […]

  2. Laura Shelting November 30, 2007 10:18 am

    I’m always on the hunt for tax efficient investment vehicle, there’s not a great deal of information out there about exchange traded notes (ETN’s) but Merrill Lynch has a nice set of ETN products called ELEMENTS ETN http://www.elementsetn.com

  3. Weekly Dividend Investing Roundup - 2008 Financial Resolution Edition | passive income November 30, 2007 4:01 pm

    […] Read the rest of this great post here […]

  4. moneygardener November 30, 2007 10:13 pm

    The visual history…post was great, thanks for that link.

  5. FourPillars November 30, 2007 10:54 pm

    I’m intrigued by the goal setting carnival but isn’t trying to predict a short term equity gain a bit too random? Your portfolio might outperform everyone over the next 10 years but over one year anything can happen. Beside, since you invest for dividends wouldn’t a better goal be to predict a dividend rate or amount by the end of 2008?

    I’m not trying to be critical but I just don’t know if the value of the portfolio at the end of 2008 has much to do with your investment ability (which I do think is pretty good).

    Mike

  6. The Dividend Guy December 1, 2007 8:50 am

    Hi Mike - thanks for the comment. You are absolutely correct that a short term equity gain can be completely random. However, I am going to use it to drive my decision to continue investing on a monthly basis and sticking to my strategy. I am not going to use the target to make rash decisions in the pursuit of more gains (which often comes with more risk). I am thinking long-term and this is one step to get to that long-term goal.

    Thanks.

    TDG

  7. 2008 Financial Resolutions | Cash Money Life December 5, 2007 6:34 am

    […] Dividend Guy has a goal to increase his stock holdings by $12,000. The current value is roughly $60,000, so that represents a solid increase of 20%. The Dividend Guy […]

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