The book about the King’s Speech written by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi, Penguin, London, 2010 is the story of King George VI and Lionel Logue overcoming the King’s stammering when speaking. When Lionel took on King George VI as a client, friendship developed and Lionel and the King enjoyed a long professional and personal relationship, but it did not make him materially rich. The King and Lionel went to a variety of functions, Lionel was invited to the King’s home and each time there was a expectation of either formal dress or close to it. Lionel’s practice of helping people to deal with their stammering gave him a modest income but not the type to be a trend setters. Perhaps if he had capitalized on his relationship with the King and let the public know, he would had more clinics and more clients and greater income.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, there often is a line in which companies should capitalize on their clients, but if few people know, how does that add to the on going operations of the company? When former Presidents or people close to them are added to the Board level, part of their responsibilities is to bring in new clients or be a rainmaker. It is an expected and normal part of the business. Every business needs new customers to purchase the premium brand (where the company brings the most profit from) for there is always some customers who end the service and part of attracting new is telling who some of the older customers are and why they are satisfied with the service. For the customers who have high esteem for the company the public should know about it and they will tend to listen to your pitch for services, for it is called using all of your public assets to the best advantage.

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

A number of years ago, a movie was made called the King’s Speech a very good and dramatic movie about talking in front of an audience. We expect on leaders to speak well and a host of other things. What if a leader was thrust into the spotlight and did not speak well? and most people on the inside knew it. The person would need training to ensure the people’s expectation and his delivery matched. The book about the King’s Speech written by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi, Penguin, London, 2010 is the story of King George VI and Lionel Logue overcoming the King’s stammering when speaking. Those who are born to monarchy are to represent the King and Queen in all sorts of functions when dignitaries are needed to open something, turn the sod, give comforting words etc. King George VI was not expected to be King as the second son, his brother stepped down for love of Mrs. Wallace Simpson (and perhaps other reasons) and Albert stepped up to become King George VI. The King VI had stammering problem and Lionel helped him with it. There were many lessons, a wonderful relationship and a King who delivered on the people’s expectations.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, expectations plays a significant part of investing in the markets. Expectations of the quarterly results; expectations of new products or services; expectations of raising money with debt or equity; expectations of dealing with change in market conditions; expectations of the new management, and the list goes on. If a company delivers consistently on its expectations while showing a profit its goodwill goes up people will flock to owning the stock because expectations have been met. If expectations are not meant by, the markets will send the price of the stock lower, for there is always another choice when dealing with the markets.

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

wonderful book called the Gold of Exodus was written by Howard Blum, Simon and Schuster, 1998. In the book, two adventurers Larry Williams and Bob Cornuke went looking for the mountain for both spiritual and financial reasons. There are a variety of reasons why the book is interesting – first any detective story has excitement built in; actually finding substantive information to back the clues is ups the excitement. Taking the journey than Mosses walked or a pilgrimage has many spiritual feelings – a sense of the desert and what life was about and how precious it is. Another aspect of the book is the geo political happenings. In the Middle East, who is aligned with whom is a changing field and depends on the circumstances. Each country is trying to figure out what the others are doing, thinking and trying to stay one step ahead of each other. In the book’s example, Saudi Arabia wanted to defend itself against others and had the money to pay for the best systems, in the geo political world often times money does not necessary buy you what you think it is buying you. Saudi wanted a radar system to detect missiles that could cross its borders and one of the sites for the system was Jabal al Lawz (Mt. Sinai). This meant the adventurers had another roadblock ahead of them – military sites are protected by armed people. If the adventurers had come 5 years previous, the site given Saudi authorization to visit would have been open to anyone, not the site is behind the fence.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the world changes and sometimes even the best planning fails to take account of the geo political changes that happen. Some of it happens over time, some of it happens over a short period of time. When you buy a dividend paying stocks the companies have experience in dealing with geo political changes, technological changes and just change in general. Understanding no company is perfect or even close to it, however if a company has consistently made profits and increased its dividends; you should expect its management has the ability to steer through normal changes and even profit from them.

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

In the Jewish and Christian religions, the time when the Jewish people left Egypt and were no longer slaves is an important part of the religion. The route taken, one would think, should be well known. Along the journey, Mosses went up Mr. Sinai and came back with the 10 Commandments or the laws of the people. What if for hundreds of years, the mountain that was chosen is not the correct one? What if the mountain is actually in Saudi Arabia, in the land of Midian? When Mosses was cast out by Egypt, he settled in Midian, when he lead the people out of Egypt he went back to Midian, later Israel was founded. So the simple question is where is Midian? and why were people going to another site? When the Roman Emperor Constaintine the Great converted and made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, he had a team sent to the South Sinai Peninsula and they picked a mountain. In the Jewish tradition, the mountain where Mosses received the 10 Commandments was a mystery or an unknown. Midian is now in the boundaries of Saudi Arabia.

A wonderful book called the Gold of Exodus was written by Howard Blum, Simon and Schuster, 1998. In the book, two adventurers Larry Williams and Bob Cornuke went looking for the mountain for both spiritual and financial reasons. When the Jews left Egypt, they took a lot of gold and silver from Egypt, some of it went to the Golden Calf which was destroyed; some of it went to the Ark of the Convenant and the some was left by the mountain. Maybe it is still there? The adventurers used a variety of methods to determine where upwards of a million people would leave their trail and operations. Clues are found in the Bible for some of the bible is fact and some of it is belief. The real route to Mt. Sinai was found – from Cairo down the Gulf of Suez across the Strait of Tiran and to the mountain called Jabal al Lawz, which is in Saudi Arabia. It happens very few people will be going to the Mt. because the Saudi’s have built military infrastructure in the area. The infrastructure costs billions of dollars and will not be moving anytime soon, thus Saudi Arabia has the distinction of having the two holiest shires of the Muslim religion and the holy shine of the Christian religion.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the adventure started with a chance to find gold as well as the real Mt. Sinai, with the adventurers thinking gold was the top priority. As they followed the route, the journey of the man Mosses becomes more important and given the military infrastructure, the priorities switched to the journey. With your investments, the adventure or sense of adventure starts and one always hopes for more gold, but the journey is important. Along that journey if you can collect dividends, it makes the journey easier and then you can relish in both the journey and the gold.

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

On Friday, in the Globe and Mail, Peter Aston vice President of client services at Recognia Inc. looked at US large cap stocks. In all comparisons first he had to narrow the field with different criteria. The first criteria was minimum market capitalization of $ 5 billion – this is an effort to focus on greater stability and safety. This reduced the market to 10% of the field.  The second step is to look for companies with a price-to earnings ration of less than 15; a 5 year historical earnings-per-share growth rate of greater than 5 %; debt to equity of 1.5 or less; and 5 year historical dividend growth rate of 10% or more.

The data came up with a number of companies which are:

Company                           Symbol          Market     P/E   EPS Growth  Debt      Dividend

Cap B$                 %           to Equity   Growth %

Apple Inc                           AAPL-Q         510.2       14.6      58.1         0.13        330.2

Coach Inc                         COH-N              11.5       12.9      11.7         0.09       137.8

Capital One Financ           COF-N               43.8      11.0     182.2       0.97          49.6

Fifth Third Banc                FITN-Q               17.6      10.3      35.9        0.77          112.9

Aetna Inc                            AET-N              26.5       13.0      15.1        0.58          298.5

Ensco                                 ESV-N               11.8        8.7       13.5        0.37          216.7

Travellers Comp                  TRV-N              31.6        8.8        25.8       0.25           10.6

21St Century Fox                FOX-N              70.9       11.0        83.0      0.97            12.4

Seagate Tech                      STX-Q               16.3      11.1         9.1       1.33            76.2

Microsoft                             MSFT-Q            325.7      14.8         9.5      0.26           15.9

Raytheon                               RTNN               30.6       14.9        9.6       0.42           14.5

Hopefully the above tell shows there are many good companies to be found although to expect the dividend growth rate over 100% maybe asking for too much. Apple recently started paying a dividend and it does have $ 150 billion outside the US; the others are financials and they were all went down in 2008, but have come roaring back as the US economy improves.

With your investments, learn to narrow the field and you will find many good companies without having to  take on too much risk. The risk part will can be low and the reward high.

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

As summer approaches there will be many theatre companies around the world presenting works by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is one of the world’s best known writers of plays and many of the themes are timeless. If you go to one or two of the plays, your interest may be sparked about what was it like in when Shakespeare actually performed the works. A book called Life in Shakespeare’s England written by John Dover Wilson, Cambridge, University Press, 1926 is one of many books that help set the scene. Although the themes, Mr. Shakespeare wrote about are universal or speak to us whether we were in the 1500’s or the 2000’s, the plays of Shakespeare are both entertaining and educational. Whether it is Shakespeare or something else, it is good to look at the past to see how the future will unfold and sometimes it is good to know what the conditions were at the time of the writings to gain insight into the writings.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, after you acquire a stock, you may begin to study the history for many companies have books written about them, although the bulk of them were commissioned by the company and try to present them in the best light possible. It is written after you acquire the shares, because usually we know something about the company, but as an owner your interest is more direct to knowing exactly what you own. Sometimes you read about the culture of the company to gain an understanding of how the company manages to keep its market share. Sometimes the culture will tell you how new leaders come to the forefront of the company. Gaining understanding is always good, but remember the themes tend to be universal.

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

This is the time for movies to be released and over the next few months many movies will be released, hopefully some will be blockbusters (make a lot of money). With this thought in mind, a book about screen writing was picked up called Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman, Vintage Books, NY, 2000. Mr. Goldman is an active member of the screenwriter guild and has written many screenplays of movies many of us have seen. The movies include: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, The Princess Bride, Misery, The Chamber, and a host of others. In the book, Mr. Goodman is with a producer – they connect investors to people who make movies to those who distribute movies and take a cut on all the transactions. You can imagine the Producer is someone who sees the glass half full and the potential is still, notwithstanding complications, sky high. During the conversation with an emphasis on the glass half full, the producer asked Mr. Goldman which lie did I tell? If all comes out as projected, none.

Within the book are stories about how actors are pitched, who would be perfected for the role? tips for writing for the movies, how to pitch a story, why scenes work and why they do not, and lots of stories about the movies. Often movies do not work because they try to be something they are not. Movies start off trying to do one thing, but because someone has an idea or they do not how to pull it off, the audience stops believing and the movie does not work. Typically Hollywood movies reinforce and reassure the audience. Independent films unsettle us or throw us curveballs. In terms of ideas, any idea can be a movie, but do you want to spend time writing it?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the movies are part of our entertainment and many movies are made but only a few of them are great. The stock market has many stocks that can trade and do trade on a daily basis, but few are great. With the stock market if you limit yourself to the great ones or the best ones – profitable, pay a dividend – the market share allows for the ability to continually raise the dividend, you will not have losers in your portfolio. You may not have a blockbuster, but you would have many consistently profitable companies which over time allow you to be wealthier.

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

The Railway Game was written by J Lakasiewicz, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1976. It focuses on Canadian railways, but the names of the railway lines could easily be exchanged to any European and the United States railway. In one of the chapters concerns the story of a proposed rationalization in St. Louis. The City of St. Louis is in the geographical center of the US with the Mississippi River flowing through it. When the US was entering in its railway age, the driving cities were Philadelphia and New York. The New York lines typically went north to Albany and then straight as possible to Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago and then the rest of the US. The Pennsylvania line which linked to Philly went to St. Louis and then to the rest of the US. The St Louis marshalling yards was the second largest American rail centre in 1974. The yard served 19 companies operating 63 marshalling yards and a network of connecting lines. The rail yards occupy prime city center land. The book refers to a report which says the connecting efficiency is lower than it can be and if the operations were consolidated in a master yard the transit time would be reduced by over 50%. The issue being discussed is when freight is picked up on one place, the railway car often travels on a second railway line before reaching its destination or it needs to be reconnected.

The railway yards are operated by the railway companies but they are all competitors who do not wish to spend great amounts of money to help each other. At the time in the 1970s, the cost was $150 million, that easily translates to a billion in today’s numbers. Railway companies came after the boats and typically occupy downtown land, and to do a master yard, new lands need to be acquired outside of downtown. The problem of course is in the meantime, highway builders built highways near the railway lands and it the railway goes for a long time, few people have wanted to live near a downtown highway. To solve a problem of operational efficiencies creates bigger problems in the downtown of the city.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in many cases, the companies have large infrastructure connected to the operations of the company for example factories. In order to keep the profit margins, plants are closed which have existed for a long time in a community, that affects people, but it may be good for the company. Very often as a profitable company, the plant has been a good corporate citizen to the community besides offering long service jobs. As long as senior management worries about the impacts on the community and offers to help, then they are doing their jobs. If your company shuts operations and moves the machines in the middle of the night, then you may want to sell because solutions are often complicated, not easy.

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

Some of the early books about investing which were read including owning railway bonds. Books published around the 1900’s included topics of railway bonds and different dealers specialized in the bonds. The companies that being discussed, many of them now do not exist except in Railway Museums. At the present time, the lines have been reorganized, were involved with mergers, nationalized, or discontinued. The Railway Game was written by J Lakasiewicz, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1976. It focuses on Canadian railways, but the names of the railway lines could easily be exchanged to any European and the United States railway. The steam engine was invented and railways would open up the country. In every country, the politicians of the day, wanted to more than encourage railways to be in their area. Grants either from the Federal Government, State Government or Municipal Governments and usually a combination of all three were offered. The Federal Government because the railways connect one end of the country to the other, which is good for the government of the day, offered government guarantees of the railway bonds. The bonds were sold in London and New York, because for investors there was the government guarantee and that is where investment dollars were to be found. In the late 1800’s many times land grants were given to the railway companies which meant the ones that survived had many operations – timber, minerals or natural resources, hotels, etc. For a time, the railway companies were the immigration department, encouraging people to come to North America for free or discounted land in the west. In the 1920’s and 30’s all railways were rationalized and some lines discontinued. One railway in the book if you drew on a map the line should be 84 miles, the railway due to politicians was 148 miles long with most of it having few paying customers. That particular  railway has since been discontinued for roads and trucks.

Linking to dividend paying stocks,  the railways were the infrastructure of the country and politicians were offering public money to build the railroads. In many instances they continued to offer public money to operate the railroads when the lines were not making money. The railway companies would have been wrong not to accept the money. When politicians offer money, and it fits into the plans of the company, money should be accepted whether it is taxpayer or not. In many parts of the world, we somehow forgot most of the infrastructure was paid by taxpayers, just not always operated by taxpayers.

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