20 Quality Buybacks At A Reasonable Price

On one hand, many would argue that the emphasis on share repurchases is merely a sign of the times – the US economy continues to grow (albeit slowly) while corporates enjoy ample balance sheet flexibility in an entirely unprecedented ultralow interest rate environment characterized by the Fed’s ongoing reluctance to raise rates as much of the world’s government debt has moved to negative yields… 

On the other hand, buyback activity near all-time highs could be considered a potential sign that the current Bull Market is approaching its peak. While there is a plausible argument supporting greater share repurchases – return of excess cash in the absence of viable alternative investments – firms have historically exhibited poor timing. 

Management tends to repurchase shares in bull markets when profits are high and balance sheets are flush with cash, while cutting back during recessions (precisely the time they should be buying over the long term).

Here are 20 high quality buyback kings at a reasonable price...

Oil Refinery Dividend Stock Investing - These Portfolio Generated 12.26% Yearly

Oil dropped to just over $40 per barrel, and oil stocks have taken a hit. If you're worried that oil will stay at a low price, then refiners are a good investment.

They do very well when the price of crude is low. Low prices means they can refine more oil, so, apart from the initial hit on inventory, future profit opportunities are strong. People also tend to buy more gas when oil is low, so there's more demand for the refineries.

My latest research focus was the Asset Management, Industrial and finally the Energy Sector.

Within the Energy sector, companies from the downstream segment like Oil refinery stocks look attractive for me. They do not depend highly on the oil price, more on the cracking margin.

The business of the refining players is negatively correlated with crude prices. This is because the companies use oil as an input from which they derive refined petroleum products like gasoline – the prime transportation fuel in the U.S. Hence, lower the oil price, higher will be their profits.

We can say that the decline in crude price, which is expected to continue for some time, will bring more good news for the firms engaged in refining oil.

This means not that downstream companies are better when the oil price slumps. My research result of the past decade was that they also lose value and they are highly volatile. 

In 2008, the year of the financial crisis, the portfolio of the best refinery dividend paying oil stocks lost more than half of its value. After the sell-off, it tripled its value.

Attached is a list of 12 dividend paying oil refinery stocks that gave investors a great past return. Over the last decade, those stocks delivered a 12.26% average yearly return.

The biggest threat is in my view the possibility of a political change in the energy sector. Do politicians want more renewable energy production or put they more money into jobs and growth via the old systems.

Energy is definitely the most important sector that benefits when growth should be created for the economy.

These are the best dividend picks from the Oil Refinery Industry...

19 Dividend Stocks With A Cash Return Yield Over 10%

Dividends and share buybacks help increase value for people holding a stock, and there's a lot of money to be had as companies shovel record amounts of cash back to shareholders.

We recognize activist investors often agitate for firms to return excess cash to shareholders via buybacks. However, while repurchases may lift share prices in the near term, they are a questionable use of cash at the current time when the median S&P 500 multiple is so high. In our view, acquisitions – particularly in the form of stock deals – represent a more compelling strategic use of cash than buybacks given the current stretched valuation of US equities.

I've compiled a list of the top 19 stocks, all with a total cash return yield of more than 10%. Below include how much of the return is from dividends or buybacks. You'll also find a comment about cash returns from company executives on the during their latest quarterly earnings call.

Check out the 19 stocks here...

20 Best Dividend Performance Kings In Review

Dividend investors looking for income and income growth, that's true but if we are honest, a solid performance is better than a small dividend amount.

Pennies become dollars and hundreds of dollars end in a million one day. Small dividends count and will contribute to your first million.

Today I like to show you those dividend paying stocks that have created the best performance over the past year while their performance did not lose momentum during the past month.

These are the 5 best performing dividend stocks over the past year in detail. Attached you find a list of the 20 best stocks with a performance between 55 to 89 percent.

Here are the results....

These 42 Stocks Planning To Pay More Dividends

Stocks with dividend hikes from last week originally published at long-term-investments.blogspot.com. Last week, around 42 companies announced a high dividend. I published all stocks with dividend growth from the recent week in the attached dividend list. In average, stocks from the list of the latest dividend growth stocks have increased their dividend payments by 15.51 percent.

It’s always good to see how the dividend growth strategy works. Some of the dividend growers have raised their payments forty times and more. The biggest names come from the oil and gas sector. Eni and Total are the two biggest stocks followed by the British spirit maker Diageo.

Five of the results have a double-digit dividend yield and seven yielding above five percent. Analysts and brokerage firms recommend more than half, 26 in total, of the dividend growth stocks.

15 Stocks From The S&P 500 With Single P/E Ratios

Stocks from the S&P 500 with P/E’s below 10 originally published at long-term-investments.blogspot.com. It’s too easy to say that stocks with a low price-to-earnings ratio are cheap but the figure tells you a lot about the valuation of a company on the first view. 

Stocks with a low valuation are also rare. For instance, the popular S&P 500 index has only 28 members with a P/E below 10. Around 80 percent of them, in total 23, pay dividends. Current P/E’s are great but it’s always good to look at the forward P/E because it uses the future earnings of the company.

Only 16 companies from the S&P 500 have both, a current P/E and forward P/E of less than 10. If you buy those stocks you purchase them for a net income yield of 10 percent. That’s a good value in my view if the business works robust and grows with a pace of 5 to 10 percent yearly. You can find a full list of the 15 dividend paying stocks with a single P/E below. Insurer and oil & gas refining & marketing companies are mostly represented on the screen.

5 Of The Best Stocks With Dividend Growth From Last Week (Oct 29 – Nov 04, 2012)

Stocks With Biggest Dividend Hikes From Last Week by Dividend Yield – Stock, Capital, Investment. Here is a current sheet of companies that have announced a dividend increase within the recent week. In total, 49 stocks and funds raised dividends of which 24 have a dividend growth of more than 10 percent. The average dividend growth amounts to 19.91 percent. Exactly 19 stocks/funds have a yield over five percent (high yield); 25 above three percent. 35 companies are currently recommended to buy.

The biggest dividend hike came from the beverage and softdrink company Cott (COT) and he savings and loans stock Capital Federal Finl (CFFN). Both increased their dividend distributions by 140 percent.

George Soros Quantum Fund Investment Portfolio as of Q1/2012

George Soros is the founder of Soros Fund Management. In 1970 he co-founded the Quantum Fund with Jim Rogers and Christoper Ink, which created the bulk of the Soros fortune. Legendary was his currency speculation against the British Bank of England:

On September 16, 1992, Soros's fund sold short more than USD 10 billion worth of pounds sterling, profiting from the Bank of England's reluctance to either raise its interest rates to levels comparable to those of other European Exchange Rate Mechanism countries or to float its currency. Finally, the Bank of England withdrew the currency from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, devaluing the pound sterling. Soros earned an estimated worth of USD 1.1 billion in the process. He was dubbed "the man who broke the Bank of England." UK Treasury estimated the total costs of Black Wednesday at GBP 3.4 billion in 1997.

Below is a top 30 list of his investment positions as of March 31, 2012. Soros Fund Management LLC was valued at USD 3.9 billion. Top New Buys: CVI, STI, CVX, M, XLP, TSO, CRM, JPM, MPC, GE

During the quarter, George Soros had 180 total positions.