- Guns and suicides
Where ever you stand on gun control, there is no denying the fact that guns kill. It’s like the reason they were created.
On that note, from Bloomberg.com comes this:
” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are about 11,000 firearm homicides a year and some 21,000 firearm suicides. In terms of sheer mortality, gun suicide is a bigger problem than gun homicide.”
- Market Quick Glance
At the close of business on Friday, Sept 16, 2016, all four indices had performed better than the week before with Nasdaq gaining the most.
According to Bloomberg, below are last week’s closing YTD performance numbers of four popular US indices along with 1-year performance figures.
-Indices:
-Dow Jones +6.13% YTD
- 1yr Rtn +13.61%
-S&P 500 +6.34% YTD
- 1yr Rtn +11.67%
–NASDAQ +5.77% YTD
- 1yr Rtn +10.12%
–Russell 2000 +8.96% YTD
- 1yr Rtn +6.90%
-Mutual funds
At the close of business on Thursday, September 15, 2016, the average YTD return of U.S.Diversified Equity Funds had lost ground from the previous week and ended the week +4.97%, according to Lipper.
Look back over the past year and the average total 52- week YTD return was 4.09%.
World Equity Funds, on average, are up 5.22%. Latin American Funds lead the way, up 30.97% on average, followed by Emerging Markets Funds, up 12.38% and then India Region Funds, up 11.20%.
Slide into income and World Income Funds, Lipper tracks 802 of them, were up on average 9.55%.
Wondering how best to use Lipper’s fund performance figures? Use their YTD returns as a guideline for how your individual fund(s) are performing. For instance, the average stock fund is up about 6.5 percent so far this year. Are your stock funds doing better or worse than that?
Visit www.allaboutfunds.com for weekly updates to see how various equity and fixed-income funds have rewarded investors over the short-and long-term, based upon Lipper data. Short-term meaning weekly and monthly performance returns; longer-term includes quarterly, year-to-date, 1-yr, 2-yr, 3-yr and 5-yr returns.
Lipper’s weekly performance figures for stock and fixed-income funds are at www.allaboutfunds.com in the left column on the home page.
- Dubious Dividends
I’m a big fan of stocks that pay dividends to their shareholders. Invest in companies that have a long history of paying them and this old-fashioned widows-and-orphans kind of investment strategy can reward shareholders handsomely.
But dividends don’t come with guarantees. The companies that pay them aren’t required to make that promise. And, can change their mind about how much gets paid at any time.
That’s something to keep in mind when hunting for dividend paying stocks to purchase.
Louis Navellier brought that point home in a current email in which he wrote: “Of the 1,500 dividend paying stocks in the market, a unbelievable 313 companies cut their dividends in the first half of 2016. That’s 1 out of every 5 dividend stocks CUTTING their dividend….”
This money pro is anticipating more cuts from dividend paying companies this year. Including companies included in ETFs and REITs .
So what can you do if you’re a divie investor?
In a word “homework.”
The dividend investing strategy remains to be a sound one but learning as much as you can about the company that pays the dividend, its history of dividend payment, current financial picture and future growth prospects all need to be reviewed and considered.
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allaboutfundsdotcom 