Recently watched a movie called My War directed by Oxide Pang and released in 2016 and is dedicated to the Chinese volunteers who fought against the US in the Korean War in the 1950’s. Similar to war movies, the movie is based on a number of characters whom the audience follows for the couple of years the movie is based on. Similar to most movies, you begin to like one character or another otherwise you would find another movie and then the war starts – the two sides are killing each other – the US and Chinese soldiers are die and it is sad. However, as someone who lives in North America and seen movies about the same period of time, as an audience member I was emphasizing with the Chinese characters. When they defeated the Americans, was it good? The war eventually ended in a stalemate and North and South Korea were divided.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, as an investor putting your money to work for one company or another, you try to pick winners. Similar to who you work for, you are there therefore the company is better. If you worked for the competition, the competition would be better. We all pick sides, but in reality in the marketplace everyone is trying to do similar things, however because our money or our time is invested in one company or another we think them as better. In business as long as the companies stay in business, very few people die, but it is important to remember we all have biases. Every once in a while, do some analysis of the competition, are they really that bad? or would you consider investing in them?

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