dividend stocks

08/02/2012 21:44

Retirees need to seek out methods for generating income from their accumulated savings; even a pension and Social Security along might not be enough to supply sufficient retirement income, particularly in the early retirement years. Many retirees in their 60s in fact notice that they spend a lot of money than they ever did throughout their working years. True, retirees no longer have commuting expenses, and they do not want to maintain expensive operating wardrobes. However a safari trip to Kenya can quickly eat away whatever you saved by not buying a replacement tailored suit.The alternatives you face in looking for income-generating investments are bewildering. And given the lingering effects of the recession of the late 2000s, many investors are still reluctant to risk their cash within the markets. Annuities are creating a sturdy comeback -- you surrender liquidity, and a add of cash you will never see again, for an income stream -- however costs are high and there is very little prospect of real growth, even with variable annuities that purport to follow the markets. (With variable annuities, returns are usually capped.)A higher selection may be a basket of bread-and-butter, dividend-paying stocks. Dividends represent some of annual profits that a company pays out to its shareholders. Newer companies, or corporations that are growing quickly, usually don't pay dividends; they pour all their profits back to the company, whether for growth, acquisitions, research and development, or different activities that can hopefully make the corporate more valuable in the future. These corporations, often called "growth" corporations, will be volatile, but will conjointly offer an investor the prospect of outsized capital gains. If you get the stock of such a company at $25 a share, it could double in worth over a brief period of time -- providing you with the option of selling and pocketing your profit. Of course, a new-to-market growth company will conjointly fail.Dividend-paying corporations, on the opposite hand, are typically a lot of established. They still earmark some of their profits for growth, acquisitions, analysis, and different activities, but their profits are more predictable, and they can promise a bound dividend to shareholders on an annual basis. (A company, of course, will perpetually modification its policy and vote to stop paying dividends for any reason, however if a longstanding company that has paid an annual dividend for decades were to suddenly stop paying dividends, this may send a confusing message to the markets, and the corporate's stock value would doubtless suffer.)A good example of an organization that has transitioned from being a high-growth, no-dividend company to a slower-growth company is Microsoft. Microsoft rapidly expanded through the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties because it became a world complete in laptop software. The corporate generated therefore a lot of cash over the years that it had been unable to efficiently utilize it, even as it continued with in depth research and development. In 2003, Microsoft paid its first-ever dividend to shareholders, and it continues to pay annual dividends to this day.If you own shares of a dividend-paying stock, you'll be able to gain in two ways. Initial, the dividends represent real cash income. Owning $20,000 of General Electric stock paying an annual dividend of 3 percent will earn you $600 a year. This is often as steady as bond income -- and, given returns on bonds in the current economy (as of Could 2011), at least as lucrative. Second, you have the prospect of capital gains.Read more about dividend stocks If you had purchased your $20,000 stake in General Electrical at $20 a share (giving you 1,000 shares), and the share value rose to $twenty five, your stake would currently be worth $twenty five,000. Even if the share worth were to drop, you'd still be collecting dividend payments -- so you'll afford to wait and sell your stock (if you would like to sell) at the most favorable time.If you do not want cash income from dividends, most corporations provide a dividend reinvestment plan, or "DRIP," in which dividend earnings are automatically used to get further stock. In the above example, your $600 annual dividend from GE would then not be came back to you in money, however used to purchase another 30 shares of stock (if the shares were price $twenty on the day of purchase). Your total holdings in GE would then be one,030 shares.And if you are uncomfortable purchasing individual stocks, most mutual fund firms provide funds that invest in income stocks -- stocks that pay dividends. T. Rowe Worth Equity Income, as an example, is a longstanding fund under stable management that has low costs. Vanguard Dividend Growth is another choice. Like individual stocks, you'll elect to receive your dividend earnings in cash payouts, or have the earnings reinvested within the funds.Dividend-paying stocks are a comparatively conservative approach to earn income on your cash, and have a chance at capital growth at the same time. If you are new in retirement and need to form your cash last another twenty-five years or longer, it's price looking at this investment option.For more info visit dividend stocks

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