And It's Clear he knows nothing about most things Finance. Thats the funny part of this thread. He's a chest thumping know it all that knows nothing and what he thinks he knows is wrong. It's next level Texags at It's finest.

You dont even know enough to know what you don't know.

How many YouTubes did You Watch before You Certified yourself as an expert? How many nights at the holiday in did it take? I have some Junior Advisors that need to stay where you did my man because wow you went from know nothing to senior portfolio Advisor in 2 days. Someone shouldve already hired you w bredth and depth of knowledge your spouting here. ROFL.

Let me guess you picked up your CFA and CFP too in those 2 days? Thanks for a great laugh my guy. Saving this thread to show the office on Monday.

Bayou City said:

---

You dont even know enough to know what you don't know.

How many YouTubes did You Watch before You Certified yourself as an expert?

---

He's slept outside several Holiday Inn's the past 30 days.

Personally I think this has been blown out of proportion. I'm more of a lurker but spend probably too much time on TexAgs. Spillner provides usually pretty level headed and valuable information in lots of cases. I think some of his counter points are being taken as aggressive.

I don't think there's any reason to attack anyone.

My two cents… retained earnings of a company can be used in two ways… future growth investment, distribution to owners, or both. I know this board loves ET. Their fcf generation is insane. They have a commitment to increase distributions to shareholders each year (and lately every quarter!)… however they blew through their capex budget which was around $2.5b and ended up over $3b in capex investment for the year. Share price has steadily marched higher, growth investment has marched higher, and capital returned to shareholders has steadily marched higher. What I look forward to with ET is the compounding effects of increasing share price and increasing dividends.

In a vacuum, yes growth stocks typically beat dividend stocks. But dividend stocks are also typically synonymous with value stocks… and you don't have to look to far to see how value investing has created some of the most wealth in human history through reinvesting dividends and compounding of those dividends over long time horizons.

Hear me when I say, I try to keep a balanced portfolio. My heart yearns for value investing, but I know the smart play is to also invest in high growth companies that plow all retained earnings (if there are any) back into the company.

When I first started investing, I used to chase dividend yield. I quickly realized that was a mistake and now focus on overall return. But I still like receiving dividends and think they can be useful.

One piece of data I found interesting is that throughout most market crashes and recessions, companies very rarely cut/suspended their dividend. The one exception obviously being the 2008 GFC, 61 of the S&P 500 cut or suspended their dividend. I think this is a pretty strong argument for dividend investing because companies will bend over backwards and do everything possible to not cut their dividend.

Bayou City said:

---

And It's Clear he knows nothing about most things Finance. Thats the funny part of this thread. He's a chest thumping know it all that knows nothing and what he thinks he knows is wrong. It's next level Texags at It's finest.

---

This is a pretty ironic post given your lecturing to the outdoors board the other day.

What I love about dividends is that I just made $3k in dividends this month alone, and I can use that to go on a trip, or reinvest, or do whatever I want with it. I basically have a guaranteed income stream of $3k every quarter for life, and it will only continue to go up as dividends increase, and I continue to invest more.

I had a buddy who got laid off from big oil during the 2015 oil bust, and it took him a while to find a job because very few companies were hiring during that time. Luckily he invested well when he was employed, and was making $2k a month in dividends that could help sustain him without having to withdraw from savings or investments.

One of my good friends is 55 and slow travelling the world in early retirement off $3000mo in dividends. He always shoots for 2000mo and reinvests the rest, but also knows we dont have infinite amounts of time and so he does splurge some. We are meeting up with him in Vietnam for 2-3 weeks in February.

My dad was born in 1922 so he came of age in the depression. He was focused on dividends. Not saying he did it right but my mother has lived for 35 years off dividends without ever touching the nest egg.

jja79 said:

---

My dad was born in 1922 so he came of age in the depression. He was focused on dividends. Not saying he did it right but my mother has lived for 35 years off dividends without ever touching the nest egg.

---

This is goals! Kudos to your dad for building a long lasting legacy.

bigtruckguy3500 said:

---

Back when I first started investing, every stock purchase came with a fee. So dividend reinvestment (DRIP) offered the advantage of buying more stock without paying that fee.

---

A lot of younger investors (and advisors) overlook this history. You couldn't buy fractional shares or uneven lots back in the day. And even if you found a broker who would sell you 10 shares of something, the high commissions would kill your returns.

DRIPs made it possible for people to invest small amounts and dollar cost average over time, with the extra advantage of earning dividends that would be reinvested. They leveled the playing field for smaller investors. I had a lot of success investing this way.

Today, you can set up a free trading account in a couple of minutes. But that hasn't always been the case, and that's one of the reasons why dividend stocks have been popular historically.

I'd like to apologize to everyone on this thread for responding in a confrontational or know-it-all manner.

I can see how my OP can come across as trying to invite conflict.