It seems like only yesterday when I launched The Daily Paycheck. But on Dec. 15, 2009, I made my first Daily Paycheck portfolio purchases. I built my portfolio slowly. After six months, roughly 60% of my funds were invested in income-generating securities, and my monthly income was… Read More

You’ve likely relied on this measure of dividend safety countless times: the earnings payout ratio. The ratio shows the portion of earnings paid out in dividends. If a company earns $1.00 per share during the year and… Read More

Banks are among the most hated institutions in the world, seen by many as the epitome of corporate greed. Investors have no love to spare for banks, either. Financials were the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500 in 2011, with losses of more than 20%, compared with about 2% for… Read More

A commodity that soon may become more precious than gold or oil is, surprisingly enough, clean water. It may sound far-fetched, but reliable sources such as the World Health Organization have been warning that the Earth is rapidly running out of clean drinking water. Today, more… Read More

You may not remember it firsthand (I certainly don’t), but 1954 was a pretty interesting year. “I Love Lucy,” starring Lucille Ball, was the most popular show on TV. The New York Giants beat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series four games to none, the league’s first win since… Read More

It’s one of the best investing strategies I know… and brokers hate it. Brokers are in the business to make money. Every time you make a trade, they collect a fee. This means they like it when you make as many trades as possible. Read More

The stock market volatility has been unprecedented. For years now we’ve seen the market rise one day… only to fall the next. Meanwhile, events considered to be “once in a generation” — credit crises, sovereign-debt downgrades and bailouts — are… Read More

I know of only one sure strategy for accumulating wealth over time, and that is to hold stocks with a consistent track record of dividend growth. The reason this strategy works is because dividend increases can be predicted in a way that share… Read More

Without a doubt, it’s our most popular piece of research. Each year we publish our annual “Top 10 Stocks” list. Put simply, these are the 10 stocks my research staff and I think have the best chance of beating the market in the coming… Read More

I’ve collected 595 dividend checks in the past two years… and I’m just getting started. Let me explain. It seems like yesterday that I sat down to write the first issue of my Daily Paycheck advisory. It was… Read More