Value Investing News

Lender Processing Services is riding the historic wave of mortgage defaults, and with continuing high rates of late mortgages and a building backlog of foreclosures, business looks good for 2010 as well. But there are some real risks to consider before investing.

The most important dividend events of the past week included news that have regulators warned financial companies to restrict dividend increases and stock buybacks for the near future. According to Reuters, executives from Goldman Sachs (GS) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM) have had talks with regulators about returning more cash to shareholders.

Last year I introduced the Stock Ideas list and it has proven to be immensely popular. The list consists of Dividend Aristocrats, US Broad Dividend Achievers and U.S. Dividend Champions. Here are some highlights on this year’s changes:

Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC), the biggest US lender, is scheduled to release financial results for fourth quarter before the opening bell on Wednesday, January 20, 2010.. Analysts, on average, expect the company to report net loss of 51 cents a share on revenue of $27.19 billion.

Estimating future dividend growth is difficult if not impossible. Companies which might have had a long history of consistent double digit increases might stop raising dividends and might even cut them. It is easy to predict whether or not a company’s dividend is sustainable in the short run, by evaluating EPS trends, dividend payout ratios and cash flows.

Most investors have specific goals in mind they pick a certain strategy to utilize. They then get to pick strategies that could help them achieve those goals. The end result from this exercise is that too often investors end up bailing out on strategies at the worst possible times.

Large financial services firms are divesting their businesses and providing unique profit opportunities to certain investment management firms. This article gives the reasons and explains how investors can profit from this trend.

Investors often fall in love with stocks, which are synonymous with innovation, growth and have delivered strong total returns up to a point. It is easy to fall in love with a stock, which everyone else is touting as the next great thing, whose products you use or is one which has made many investors rich.

The financial crisis lead to dividend cuts amongst several prominent dividend payers such as Bank of America (BAC), US Bancorp (USB) and BB&T Corp. (BBT). Over the past few weeks however, several financial companies announced that they might reconsider their current dividend policies and start raising distributions in the near future.

As an investor in the accumulation stage, I tend to focus on companies with yields of at least 3% and expectations of future dividend growth. Most of these companies have a history of consistent annual dividend increases which exceeds ten years.

In order for investors to become better at allocating capital, it is important to learn from ones mistakes. I have identified several mistakes, which could have saved investors billions had they known about them in the first place:

Financial stocks,which used to be great dividend investments,have had their share of troubles over the past two years.The sector has rebounded sharply since hitting its lows in March.Since the major dividend growth stories of the past such as Bank of America and US Bancorp have cut dividends, most dividend growth investors seem to have a very low allocation to the sector.As a result dividend inves

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) just posted its 13-F filing with the SEC, which lists changes in its stock positions.

The Chubb Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides property and casualty insurance to businesses and individuals. The company operates through three segments: Personal Insurance, Commercial Insurance, and Specialty Insurance. The company is member of the S&P 500 and the S&P Dividend Aristocrats indexes.

The markets have seen some significant gains since their March lows. Each time this occurs there is a new round of experts calling the bottom. Time and time again the market throws them a cruel twist and heads lower. Will this time be different?