As the Winter Olympics is beginning to wind down, one of the local radio stations had a documentary about ice which was caught while driving through non ice conditions. My ride was not long enough to hear all of the show but a ship captain of an ice breaker was interviewed. He talked about ice breaking – a large double hull steel ship which breaks up ice to allow for other ships to move in the wintertime. He explained how he has to prepare where to go, how to break up the ice and using different strategies to the job. My limited understanding of breaking up ice was the big ship which has added strength would break up the overnight forming ice and do it on a regular basis. It was interesting to find out being prepared, having a game plan and trying to execute it with enough flexibility to try again if the ice was not broken. The ice breaker captain talked about a gut feel of where the ice would be more vulnerable to break up and how interesting his job is.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, similar to the ice breaker captain, doing your homework, having a reason to buy the stock and not falling in love with it so you have flexibility to change your portfolio also applies to picking good stocks. The past history has shown that dividend paying stocks perform better than growth stocks (unless they get taken over with high multiples) but if they do not achieve a takeover, the dividend plus the capital gain is an excellent method to invest your money.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions