Value Investing News

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.

Prem Watsa's Fairfax Financial (FFH) puts out 2009 shareholder letter. Book value up 35% in '09. BV = $369.80/share

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:

The latest report on the performance of the Fat Pitch Financials Value Portfolio hosted at Marketocracy.

The FPF Value Port outperformed the market in 2009, returning 42.44% versus just 26.47% for the S&P 500.

The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats is the most prestigious list of dividend stocks. It is designed to measure the performance of S&P 500 stocks that have followed a policy of consistently increasing dividends every year for at least 25 consecutive years.

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.

This is an update on the performance of the Fat Pitch Financials Portfolio. The portfolio at the end of October was beating the S&P 500 by an annualized 2% since inception in 2004.

Reviewing Warren Buffett's portfolio using a ModernGraham approach. Seems like he doesn't follow Benjamin Graham anymore. Discuss.

Most companies use debt for a variety of reasons in their operations. It could be either short term or long-term obligations. If there’s anything the 2007-2009 financial crisis has taught us, it is that excessively leveraged companies could easily blow up after a chain of negative events. Thus it pays to know what the debt situation for a particular company you are investing in actually is.

Let's pay close attention to what masters like Buffett are doing on the heels of such a dismal market year.

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.

Analyzing Warren Buffett's stock picks.

* U.S. Bancorp (USB)
* USG Corporation (USG)
* Union Pacific Corp (UNP)
* United Parcel Service (UPS)
* United Health (UNH)
* Wabco Holdings (WBC)
* Wal-Mart (WMT)
* Washington Post (WPO)
* Wells Fargo (WFC)
* Wellpoint (WLP)
* Wesco Financial Corp (WSC)

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.