Imagine sitting on the board of your favorite company, attending the next meeting, clearing your throat, and asking “How much are we going to increase the dividend this quarter?” Welcome to the company! Because that’s what it’s like to be an investor in a stock that cherishes its shareholders, its owners if you will, showing […]
The Maximizers
“Meltdown? Absolutely baked into the cake as I write to you, and becoming more of a deep midterm concern for me as time passes,” wrote Dick Young in Intelligence Report back in July 2015. And here we are a short way into 2016 and the speculative NASDAQ index is down over 8%. As Dick notes, “In recent issues, my goal has been to work especially hard at providing you intelligence that will keep you safe and dividend-centric during what I consider the inevitable coming meltdown.”
Safe and dividend-centric—sort of has a ring to it, does it not? It does to me. Those words have been pounded into my head for all the years I’ve worked with my father-in-law, Dick Young, founder, and with my brother-in-law Matt Young, president and CEO of Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. In addition to our family bond, the three of us studied, at different times, at our shared alma mater, Babson College. But it was Dick who studied charts (much to the dismay of his teachers, I’m guessing) as a student at Shaker Heights High School. As you can see, there’s a lot of history when Dick writes, “I have tweaked my original work on dividends and interest, along with my long-time interest in gold (I have held my original 1982 China Gold Pandas for decades) to produce what I call the ‘Maximizers’.”
The Maximizers is a diversified portfolio, a “Retirement Ark,” if you will, of dividend-paying and dividend-increasing (for 10-consecutive years or more) common stocks, high-grade bonds, and gold. A simple enough sounding strategy for sure, but a strategy that is difficult to follow, especially in times like these when legendary investor Jack Bogle would likely advise the twitching masses to “just don’t do something, stand there.”
And stand there should you, as Yoda might say. Because it is my belief that you might lose a couple battles here and there with a Maximizers styled approach, but you will win the war. An inside baseball look reveals that the speculative NASDAQ beat the Maximizers in 8 of 15 years this century, versus 7 outperformers for the Maximizers. A pitcher with a 7-and-8 Major League Baseball starting record would be banished to the bullpen. But despite a 7 and 8 record, the final results have been incredible over the complete 21st Century.
The Maximizers win by a long shot. At the same time, the Maximizers offer you the peace of mind and comfort you deserve. The maximum deviation between the best and worst year for the Maximizers is a tiny 10 percentage points. For the outgunned and outmanned NASDAQ, the deviation is an unsettling, if not breathtaking, 91 percentage points. And the bone-chilling NASDAQ record includes five down years, four of which were bruisers. No half-sensible retirement investor is going to sign on for that backbreaking volatility. Never forget Dick Young’s cardinal rule of portfolio crafting: Always analyze risk before worrying about potential returns.
Getting on the Map with Gold
I have been a longtime supporter of including gold in diversified portfolios. Gold is a safe-haven asset, an inflation and currency hedge, and a hedge against geopolitical turmoil and general market turbulence. It is an insurance policy of sorts. When everything else is down, gold is often up. Gold’s counterbalancing effects can dull the pain […]
Get Rich Slow with This Strategy
Most “get rich quick” schemes end up turning into “get poor quick” schemes. Reach too deep into the risk pool and you’re likely to fall in. I knew that 30 years ago, and in 1988 I wrote: I’m an ultra-conservative investor at heart…and by intent. I know my reputation in the industry puts me in […]
Don’t Manage Your Money Like This
In September of 1992, I outlined the tragic story of a MLB slugger, Jack Clark who had misspent his money and wound up in bankruptcy. I wrote: It’s Time for Bankruptcy Not for you of course. No, I’m writing to you about bankruptcy for Jack Clark, Boston Red Sox slugger, but this story carries a […]
LVMH: One of My Favorite Companies in the World
Next week I am heading to Paris to spend two weeks visiting LVMH retail locations in Paris, and each of the Palace Hotels, as well as the vineyards of Burgundy. In the case of LVMH, the company controls one of the world’s best portfolios of luxury clothing, Champagne and liquors. It is virtually unrivaled. The […]
Commit This to Memory
Bond yields are rising, tech stocks look shaky, emerging market currencies are tanking, and in the midst of the longest bull market in history, September property sales in Manhattan are down 39% compared to 2017, with median sales prices falling 9% during that time. There are some warning signs flashing. What should you be doing […]
It’s Time For Investors to Focus on Treasuries
It’s time for investors to focus on Treasuries. As stocks tumbled 3% yesterday, Sinead Carew wrote at Reuters: NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks tumbled on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 marking its biggest daily decline since Feb. 8, and technology stocks led the losses as rising U.S. Treasury yields sent investors fleeing from risky […]
Here’s the Investing Advice I’d Give a Professional Athlete
This is the advice I gave professional athletes and my readers twelve years ago about how to make your retirement dollars last a lifetime. I wrote: I advise you regularly to invest only for dividends or interest. I want you to insist on getting paid, as I do. If you want to speculate with a […]
You’ll Never Know It All, But Know Enough
Don’t try to be a know-it-all investor. Building a solid foundation on diversification, patience, value, and compound interest, has always worked for me, without having to “know it all.” In 2003 I explained my deliberate method of focusing on dividends and interest to generate compound interest, writing: Invest for Dividends & Interest I’m not a […]
Emerge from the Investment War a Winner
The simple act of avoiding major losses by diversifying my portfolio and focusing on value and compound interest has allowed me to emerge from the investment war as a winner. It can work for you too if you have the patience and endurance for such a strategy. This method is all about risk management, something […]
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