TIPBlog Portfolio Update: 1H 2010

UpdateThe 1H2010 can be summarized as return of optimism, in economy, in stock markets, stabilization of global economy, and fears about euro zone. As an individual investor, should I care about macro economics, or should I even worry about what happens to Greece or to euro currency? Ambani brothers patch up and there are stories its good for markets and business! To me, being stalwarts in India Business world, instead of setting an example, it was idiotic for them to even fight and drag each other into courts. These are good academic discussion, but I doubt it is going to help in your own portfolio. I am taking stock of my portfolio.


My last progress update was for year end 2009. This post summarizes TIPBlog portfolio update and measures progress for 1H 2010. Continue reading rest of this article…

Overlooked Aspects of Dividend Investing

investingThere are many different styles, approach, and methods of investing. Many individual investors focus on trading (swing, positional, momentum, speculation, technicals etc.), while many others focus of investing (value, growth, blend, etc), and still many others on special situations (opportunistic, arbitrages, etc). In addition, there are quite a few individual investors that attempt at combination of trading and investing. Similar to glass being half full or half empty, I believe every style has its own pros and cons’ depending upon in what context one is looking at it. Individuals have to figure out what works best for them.


Readers are already accustomed to my approach of dividend investing. I am a long term buy and hold investor and prefer to buy my positions at fair values (fair value calculation methodology). The reason I use fair value is because, I do have enough expertise to determine the tangible book value. While I still use book value based on Graham’s method, it is not the only one on which I base my decision.

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Corporate Dividends in Emerging Markets – Some Thoughts

The creation of Pan Asia Dividend Aristocrat index by S&P is a realization that Asian economy (specifically emerging markets) will continue to grow. This is a step in right direction to recognize managements who are prudent in their cash management over a longer term of 10 years and more.

The newly created S&P Pan Asia Dividend Aristocrats consists of 31 corporations. Of these 31 corporations, only five companies are from emerging markets of China, Taiwan, and India. Many readers will view this lack of dividend growth in emerging markets (including India) as shot in the arm saying dividends does not provide significant return. My viewpoint is different. The chart, I presented earlier shows that dividends provide approximately one third of the total returns over 10+ years.

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S&P Pan Asia Dividend Aristocrats

Standard & Poor’s is a US based provider of financial market intelligence which includes ratings, investment research, risk evaluation and data, and various types of indices. Among multiple different indices with different focus areas, one index is the dividend aristocrat index.

The Dividend Aristocrats is an index which consists of S&P500 companies that have been raising dividends continuously for 25 years or more. That is, every year, the dividend per share keeps on increasing. If any company that reduces or cuts the dividend in any given year, it is removed from the index. Now this is the characteristics that can be viewed in multiple ways, but TIPBlog is about Indian investments. Therefore, I will not go into detailed discussion. But it gives the context for this posts further discussion.

In markets of Asia or other parts of the world, it has been difficult to find a single company that has consistently raised their dividends year after year. Outside United States, there has been lack of consistency in the way the corporate’s managed dividend strategy, or the way the government policies taxed dividends to companies and common shareholders.

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