Investing

Investing Idea - Dividend Growth

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Wow. I don't know how you find the time with having wife and kids and a full-time job.
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eonibm wrote: FYI, Joel Greenblatt, who authored one of the books you highly recommend in your 'Resources' link and also is referred to in the 'Excess Returns: A comparative study of the methods of the world’s greatest investors' presentation on your website, as having 40% returns over 20 years (ie more than DOUBLE Warren Buffet's - as if!) has never had his results independently verified by anyone. I even emailed him once to ask for proof of it, as have many other investors and he won't provide any proof. It's just his own proclamation that that is what he achieved. What makes his results all the more incredibly suspect is that he returned all his money to his investors after 20 years and instead started a free website and wrote a few books instead? Really now? That was more lucrative? Many suspect his returns are bogus and the fact he can't prove it certainly lends a ton of credence to that. Unfortunately, like many things in this day and age, his returns have been so oft repeated in the media that people take it as gospel.

I could say I achieved the same results without any proof too and likely many will believe me to. After all, they believe Joel Greenblatt's fake news.

This is not to take anything away from many of the other well known investors who do provide independent proof of their results.
With respect to Greenblatt, it's possible he is motivated by more than just money. He is a business professor at Columbia University, so perhaps his drive to spread knowledge and inform people is more important to him than his drive to accumulate numerical wealth.

He's a current PM as well at Gotham Capital Management where he runs long / short funds. They are a bit different than his previous funds but nonetheless you can track his performance today by looking at the returns of his funds. https://www.gothamfunds.com/performance.aspx
Buy right, hold tight. Keep calm and go long.
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eonibm wrote: Nice work! Must have taken a while to set up. I see you used a Divi theme. Did you program it yourself?

While it looks really good and provides a lot of useful information, other than the converts from here who have come to understand your investment philosphy and see some 'real world' examples of your successful, albeit tailored to your preference for dividends, strategy over time for others just happening upon it by surfing it might be difficult to acquire significant subscriber traction. That is because you are just another website touting investment advice and a totally anonymous one at that. You provide zero disclosure about who you are unlike the many other websites, most of which back their information up with a real person standing behind it with a name and someone who can therefore be held accountable. Therefore, to the websurfer out there it does necessarily engender much confidence in your website. You are just another totally anonymous purveyor of advice. Why should anyone place more faith in your views than any of the other many websites out there touting investment strategies, especially those who are not afraid to reveal themselves?

I am not trying to be Debbie Downer here (I'm not even female!) and am in no way trying to poo-poo the confidence that RFDers (me included) have in your investment acumen. I am sure many from here will start following your website and many RFDers will subscribe and you will earn some revenue. However, I think you need to look at your website from the point of view of someone surfing around looking for investment advice. I realize you want to stay anonymous but that is precisely the reason many non-RFD people will pass you by. They have no reason to listen to you than any other totally anonymous source.
Thanks! Yes, I've wrote all the customizations (CSS, PHP, JQUERY) and used some helpful plugins and tons of info online. I'm not a web developer, so it took me a lot longer than I thought.

You bring an interesting point, and I modified my about page a few times on that topic. First, there is a small disclosure about myself on the About page - although not a picture or full name associated with that. But like you said, you're right, it's just another website about dividends, there are tons out there. Dividend growth and even short term investing (using quant investing techniques) is not new. So the value that I plan to bring is regarding the methodology, consistency, temperament, the how-to implement, where other sites might not have all these details. And hopefully spark the interest for short term investing (with algo trading models) which is something that has very little coverage for the general public - and the few that do it, it's absurdly expensive.

I don't provide investment advice, I just share my opinions on a given company and how I approach investing for the short and long term. It's meant to be educational. So for the websurfer that is puzzled why he/she should trust to follow that website, I hope he/she does 2 things: research (one should never make a decision without research anyway) and look at the content and results. I can place all marketing I want, a decision should never be made on that alone. Maybe it's too technical or too boring or too risky for their goals. Maybe it's seen as too much work and a chore instead of being fun. But maybe it could work for them, as it works for me (and for a few folks here). Research takes time and dedication anyway. And if in the end they just want to know what to buy and sell without having to do the heavy lifting to get there, well, then I offer that too - based on mechanical models and with a extensive disclosure to what that entails.

Perhaps the challenge is how to balance an approach tailored to RFD familiar with this thread and the unknown websurfer, as it's hard to pitch a sale for the unknown websurfer and convince that they should onboard while at same time maintaining the style and commitment developed so far. In no way I take this in a negative way, that's a valid point, and since the goal is towards education and seeing how I do things, it might not spark the uninformed looking for advice, but hopefully the content, the discussions and the focus to approach a business at a time will inspire the curiosity to dive through. And hopefully the performance on the short term investing / trading models, which are updated weekly, will also inspire one to consider the pros and cons of that style.

I'm always open to ideas - and the website has this look today thanks to the feedback of some RFD members that volunteered to test and give me suggestions before I announced it. So hopefully this will become a useful resource for further research. The info posted relies on paid platforms, but it will continue to be posted for free, since my point is to show that anyone can learn to become a better investor (and unfortunately there are no easy and good tools that are free). I'm ok with that because I'm doing that research anyway, and the whole point of all this started was about that anyone can learn and get there too. Also, there are not many websites covering Canadian stocks, companies, and the rationale for value and growth with every purchase - and I plan to do that monthly, as I need to go over those steps anyway to buy for myself.

I'm not sure if we need a face or name associated with that - I think results and ultimately content will drive traffic and subscription. Take for example the milliondollarjourney website, which is a fantastic way to learn about Smith Maneuver - it's a guy, married with 2 kids, but not much about a specific accountability there. And it was the contents and consistency that drove where they are, so I think results and content will drive that eventually. Hopefully people sharing it on social media or talking about it. There is actually a part of me that want to go easy on the marketing / driving subscription piece, since I've seen too many nice websites designed just to scam people. The investing webapages have links how this started with RFD, and hopefully that will help with the accountability too - we have here a good community / place that one can develop an informed opinion on any website, and this should be done anywhere, as this topic is too delicate to "get convinced" based on how nice a website look or who is behind (which would be unknown for a novice anyway).

Hopefully the SEO techniques that I'm learning will bring that confidence for the unknown websurfer, which can link to real results and discussions, while maintaining the current crowd engaged and inspired. Things will get really interesting on the next crash. :)

But this is a great point and I wish more people knew how to land on RFD or FinancialWisdomForum instead of resorting to sales offering on sub-par products not designed for their goals or risk tolerance.


Rod
Build a comprehensive portfolio based on Investing and Trading strategies. Check out these threads and join the discussion:
Investing strategy based on dividend growth

Trading strategy based on Graham principles.
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eonibm wrote: Wow. I don't know how you find the time with having wife and kids and a full-time job.
I'm down to 2 hobbies now, as I don't have time to fly anymore, so that helps :)


Rod
Build a comprehensive portfolio based on Investing and Trading strategies. Check out these threads and join the discussion:
Investing strategy based on dividend growth

Trading strategy based on Graham principles.
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eonibm wrote: FYI, Joel Greenblatt, who authored one of the books you highly recommend in your 'Resources' link and also is referred to in the 'Excess Returns: A comparative study of the methods of the world’s greatest investors' presentation on your website, as having 40% returns over 20 years (ie more than DOUBLE Warren Buffet's - as if!) has never had his results independently verified by anyone. I even emailed him once to ask for proof of it, as have many other investors and he won't provide any proof. It's just his own proclamation that that is what he achieved. What makes his results all the more incredibly suspect is that he returned all his money to his investors after 20 years and instead started a free website and wrote a few books instead? Really now? That was more lucrative? Many suspect his returns are bogus and the fact he can't prove it certainly lends a ton of credence to that. Unfortunately, like many things in this day and age, his returns have been so oft repeated in the media that people take it as gospel.

I could say I achieved the same results without any proof too and likely many will believe me to. After all, they believe Joel Greenblatt's fake news.

This is not to take anything away from many of the other well known investors who do provide independent proof of their results.
Perhaps he extended his numbers, but I use Greenblatt's metrics (earnings yield and Return on Capital) on one of my trading models, and they continue to give me very decent results. I think it's a decent combination.


Rod
Build a comprehensive portfolio based on Investing and Trading strategies. Check out these threads and join the discussion:
Investing strategy based on dividend growth

Trading strategy based on Graham principles.
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Dec 3, 2014
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Nice website. If I understand it correctly: the CDN Graham portfolio and both CDN and US dividend portfolios will be free, whereas the others are pay-only?
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llpresident wrote: Nice website. If I understand it correctly: the CDN Graham portfolio and both CDN and US dividend portfolios will be free, whereas the others are pay-only?
Correct. And hopefully I will have enough interesting material on top of these portfolios to keep it interesting.


Rod
Last edited by rodbarc on Oct 11th, 2017 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Build a comprehensive portfolio based on Investing and Trading strategies. Check out these threads and join the discussion:
Investing strategy based on dividend growth

Trading strategy based on Graham principles.
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Rod: congrats on your new website and thanks for sharing ! Will explore what you posted there and continue to learn.
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I've bookmarked your website Rob. This thread has helped me a lot with investing.
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Jul 9, 2010
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Rod thank you for your sharing all the time and changing my thoughts of investing since reading your posts.
Luckily surf your new website and subscribe the newsletter before you announce itSmiling Face With Open Mouth
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treva84 wrote: With respect to Greenblatt, it's possible he is motivated by more than just money. He is a business professor at Columbia University, so perhaps his drive to spread knowledge and inform people is more important to him than his drive to accumulate numerical wealth.

He's a current PM as well at Gotham Capital Management where he runs long / short funds. They are a bit different than his previous funds but nonetheless you can track his performance today by looking at the returns of his funds. https://www.gothamfunds.com/performance.aspx
Well if all he is interested in is spreading knowledge then why is he now managing money again? He claims to have returns double that of Warren Buffett over 20 years, closes the funds and gives back all the money, refuses to provide any proof to anyone of his returns except from his own mouth, then decides to write a book and run a website only to get back into money management using his past unverifiable track record? Wow, I wasn't born yesterday but I do understand most people are pretty gullible! We should all do the same as Greenblatt. Btw, the return on even the best of his Gotham funds are less than 1/3rd of the 20 year returns he touts from his previous 'track record'. And this during a great bull market.
Last edited by eonibm on Oct 12th, 2017 11:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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rodbarc wrote: Thanks! Yes, I've wrote all the customizations (CSS, PHP, JQUERY) and used some helpful plugins and tons of info online. I'm not a web developer, so it took me a lot longer than I thought.

You bring an interesting point, and I modified my about page a few times on that topic. First, there is a small disclosure about myself on the About page - although not a picture or full name associated with that. But like you said, you're right, it's just another website about dividends, there are tons out there. Dividend growth and even short term investing (using quant investing techniques) is not new. So the value that I plan to bring is regarding the methodology, consistency, temperament, the how-to implement, where other sites might not have all these details. And hopefully spark the interest for short term investing (with algo trading models) which is something that has very little coverage for the general public - and the few that do it, it's absurdly expensive.

I don't provide investment advice, I just share my opinions on a given company and how I approach investing for the short and long term. It's meant to be educational. So for the websurfer that is puzzled why he/she should trust to follow that website, I hope he/she does 2 things: research (one should never make a decision without research anyway) and look at the content and results. I can place all marketing I want, a decision should never be made on that alone. Maybe it's too technical or too boring or too risky for their goals. Maybe it's seen as too much work and a chore instead of being fun. But maybe it could work for them, as it works for me (and for a few folks here). Research takes time and dedication anyway. And if in the end they just want to know what to buy and sell without having to do the heavy lifting to get there, well, then I offer that too - based on mechanical models and with a extensive disclosure to what that entails.

Perhaps the challenge is how to balance an approach tailored to RFD familiar with this thread and the unknown websurfer, as it's hard to pitch a sale for the unknown websurfer and convince that they should onboard while at same time maintaining the style and commitment developed so far. In no way I take this in a negative way, that's a valid point, and since the goal is towards education and seeing how I do things, it might not spark the uninformed looking for advice, but hopefully the content, the discussions and the focus to approach a business at a time will inspire the curiosity to dive through. And hopefully the performance on the short term investing / trading models, which are updated weekly, will also inspire one to consider the pros and cons of that style.

I'm always open to ideas - and the website has this look today thanks to the feedback of some RFD members that volunteered to test and give me suggestions before I announced it. So hopefully this will become a useful resource for further research. The info posted relies on paid platforms, but it will continue to be posted for free, since my point is to show that anyone can learn to become a better investor (and unfortunately there are no easy and good tools that are free). I'm ok with that because I'm doing that research anyway, and the whole point of all this started was about that anyone can learn and get there too. Also, there are not many websites covering Canadian stocks, companies, and the rationale for value and growth with every purchase - and I plan to do that monthly, as I need to go over those steps anyway to buy for myself.

I'm not sure if we need a face or name associated with that - I think results and ultimately content will drive traffic and subscription. Take for example the milliondollarjourney website, which is a fantastic way to learn about Smith Maneuver - it's a guy, married with 2 kids, but not much about a specific accountability there. And it was the contents and consistency that drove where they are, so I think results and content will drive that eventually. Hopefully people sharing it on social media or talking about it. There is actually a part of me that want to go easy on the marketing / driving subscription piece, since I've seen too many nice websites designed just to scam people. The investing webapages have links how this started with RFD, and hopefully that will help with the accountability too - we have here a good community / place that one can develop an informed opinion on any website, and this should be done anywhere, as this topic is too delicate to "get convinced" based on how nice a website look or who is behind (which would be unknown for a novice anyway).

Hopefully the SEO techniques that I'm learning will bring that confidence for the unknown websurfer, which can link to real results and discussions, while maintaining the current crowd engaged and inspired. Things will get really interesting on the next crash. :)

But this is a great point and I wish more people knew how to land on RFD or FinancialWisdomForum instead of resorting to sales offering on sub-par products not designed for their goals or risk tolerance.


Rod
There's a big difference between your website & MDJ as the latter does not charge for subscriptions but makes his money from ads. When people are shelling out money every month for a subscription they look at things differently. Also, what I noticed from RFD is a lot of people just want to be spoon fed your recommendations and have little patience or interest in learning on their own. There is a significant overhead in reading all the books and articles you recommend and understanding charting fundamentals. Worse is most just don't get that emotional intelligence in disregarding Mr. Markets grumpy days and near term results and not being swayed by social proof are the most important assets. Btw, if you look behind the curtain of the Mr. Million Dollar Journey it turns out a large part of his $1M fortune was derived from the sale of another website he started. On top of that, his returns aren't verifiable either. He could be some guy sitting in Nigeria touting his investment returns (while he isn't sending emails out offering people half of a hundred million dollar fortune sitting in a Swiss bank account). Lastly, does anyone really think that if he actually does not have that $1M anymore he is going to admit it? Hardly! That would result in his website traffic and hence revenue plummeting like crazy. Since he is not held accountable his results could be one big fairy tale.
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eonibm wrote: No impact at all. First of all it takes a while to set up a new high-net worth money management firm and it is tough slogging to attract clients even if you have a good track record. On top of that there are non-competes in terms of taking existing clients with you. It's a bit different than a classic brokerage firm where it might be possible.

She's not revealing where she is going. No point.

As for waiting till Monday, I am not that good at picking the bottom. Only lucky people are. The stock is at a fair valuation especially considering you have a call option on the extra dividends that are a result of the performance bonus, but it's not at a fire sale price.
I find the reaction overdone, never seen or heard of this portfolio manager. There was also a downgrade in there from Scotia so this has played a part. What's also interesting, this is having almost as bad as an effect as the arbitration battle with the founders that was potentially worth over 40% of the entire market cap. I would imagine some clients will move with her, money has already been flowing out of the company for a while now. Could be she has connections to wealthy Asians clients she has brought in? Ultimately, if she is replaced by another manager I'm sure he/she may also bring in high net worth clients. This was trading @ $7.00 in the financial crisis with less than 1/2 the AUM and today is just $16.00, I would call that undervalued. Raised the dividend right through as well and the current dividend will be raised now that the arbitration cloud has passed. I wouldn't expect any special div for a while, a big one was paid last week. At the end of the day, this company will be taken over for it's client books so I purchased more today.
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ottofly wrote: I find the reaction overdone, never seen or heard of this portfolio manager. There was also a downgrade in there from Scotia so this has played a part. What's also interesting, this is having almost as bad as an effect as the arbitration battle with the founders that was potentially worth over 40% of the entire market cap. I would imagine some clients will move with her, money has already been flowing out of the company for a while now. Could be she has connections to wealthy Asians clients she has brought in? Ultimately, if she is replaced by another manager I'm sure he/she may also bring in high net worth clients. This was trading @ $7.00 in the financial crisis with less than 1/2 the AUM and today is just $16.00, I would call that undervalued. Raised the dividend right through as well and the current dividend will be raised now that the arbitration cloud has passed. I wouldn't expect any special div for a while, a big one was paid last week. At the end of the day, this company will be taken over for it's client books so I purchased more today.
Yes it's overdone. It's trading at 16 P/E right now and that's including the call option of the performance bonus dividend. She was not a person with connections to wealthy Asians and was not even involved in marketing to clients. FYI another person involved in portfolio management is also leaving with her and going to the same firm that she is going to. GS has the profile to attract the best and brightest to its PM team. They can easily replace and augment.
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Aug 2, 2015
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What do you guys think about DF or DFN? The only downside about it seems to be that the dividend does not grow, but it holds a stable ~10%+ dividend over a long term, including crashes. Might be a good idea for a cash park, but also an opportunity for capital gains when you do buy them during crashes (like 2008 or the 2016 oil price crash)
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eonibm wrote: There's a big difference between your website & MDJ as the latter does not charge for subscriptions but makes his money from ads. When people are shelling out money every month for a subscription they look at things differently. Also, what I noticed from RFD is a lot of people just want to be spoon fed your recommendations and have little patience or interest in learning on their own. There is a significant overhead in reading all the books and articles you recommend and understanding charting fundamentals. Worse is most just don't get that emotional intelligence in disregarding Mr. Markets grumpy days and near term results and not being swayed by social proof are the most important assets. Btw, if you look behind the curtain of the Mr. Million Dollar Journey it turns out a large part of his $1M fortune was derived from the sale of another website he started. On top of that, his returns aren't verifiable either. He could be some guy sitting in Nigeria touting his investment returns (while he isn't sending emails out offering people half of a hundred million dollar fortune sitting in a Swiss bank account). Lastly, does anyone really think that if he actually does not have that $1M anymore he is going to admit it? Hardly! That would result in his website traffic and hence revenue plummeting like crazy. Since he is not held accountable his results could be one big fairy tale.
I agree with you, and I'm trying to figure out a way to be useful for the non-RFD crowd. The performance results of the paid models (and the free one) are published by a 3rd-party, porrfolio123, which I cannot modify. So there is that accountability. But I agree there is more than can be presented to give one the confidence to give it a shot. I'm also open to ideas on how to do that. These models are designed to the ones that don't want to spend their time with research, and the rules are explained to give one a comfort level that it's not just a black box.


Rod
Build a comprehensive portfolio based on Investing and Trading strategies. Check out these threads and join the discussion:
Investing strategy based on dividend growth

Trading strategy based on Graham principles.
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Jan 20, 2016
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wussok wrote: What do you guys think about DF or DFN? The only downside about it seems to be that the dividend does not grow, but it holds a stable ~10%+ dividend over a long term, including crashes. Might be a good idea for a cash park, but also an opportunity for capital gains when you do buy them during crashes (like 2008 or the 2016 oil price crash)
Yield chasing didn't work, mostly.
over the last 10y (5y will be quite same picture):

TD with 4% has ~+100% price and ~+40% divs, that's 140% (arithmetic for sake of simplicity) and ~10% CAGR afair
DFN has -38% and +110%=+70%, just 100% underperformance, and 0 growth of dividends
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eonibm wrote: Well if all he is interested in is spreading knowledge then why is he now managing money again? He claims to have returns double that of Warren Buffett over 20 years, closes the funds and gives back all the money, refuses to provide any proof to anyone of his returns except from his own mouth, then decides to write a book and run a website only to get back into money management using his past unverifiable track record? Wow, I wasn't born yesterday but I do understand most people are pretty gullible! We should all do the same as Greenblatt. Btw, the return on even the best of his Gotham funds are less than 1/3rd of the 20 year returns he touts from his previous 'track record'. And this during a great bull market.
People are complex - it's generally not all or nothing. Interests and hobbies are dynamic and what a person enjoys doing or finds fulfilling changes with time.

I think approaching everything with a healthy dose of skepticism is important, but at the end of the day does it really matter what his past return is? His ideas are what are important, his performance is what is used to try and justify his ideas - to get people to "buy in" to his thinking (i.e. marketing). You can still have good ideas with or without execution. What's that old saying? Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

I agree with you his funds are underperforming. Ultimately, if you don't like Greenblatt or think he's a lying kook that's fine. I personally like his ideas, independent of his past / present fund performance. The two do not need to be mutually exclusive.
Buy right, hold tight. Keep calm and go long.
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Jun 28, 2017
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wussok wrote: What do you guys think about DF or DFN? The only downside about it seems to be that the dividend does not grow, but it holds a stable ~10%+ dividend over a long term, including crashes. Might be a good idea for a cash park, but also an opportunity for capital gains when you do buy them during crashes (like 2008 or the 2016 oil price crash)
DF's NAV is dangerously close to $15, at which point it stops paying a dividend. If you do want 15% yield, DGS is a safer bet right now. I think it can be worth it for short term gain, but you'll be better off longterm by dumping the distributions into other stocks. I bought it on margin, because I know I'll be able to pay the interest on the loan and still get some money every month while being fairly sure the price won't drop substantially. So far, I've made money but I would have been considerably better off buying TD.
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Sep 2, 2004
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Congratulations on getting your website launched and for reaching 2,000 posts in this thread!

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