Why dividends?
I believe that creating a passive income stream through dividends is an achievable, intriguing and stimulating way to decrease my dependency on the salary income, which is over 95% of my income at the moment. The remaining 5% comes from interest income from CD’s and my interest checking account at Schwab, credit card rewards and signing up for offers online. After doing some research, i have found that putting your money in bonds, cds and money market funds will only be enough to meet inflation and over long periods of time exceed it by a couple percentage points on average. Stocks on the other hand offer you the best possible investment opportunity out there. Over 30-35% of stocks performance over the past 50 years has been attributed to dividends; the rest comes from capital gains. If you take a look at the S&P 500 from 1957- 2005, the dividends have grown on average of 5.3% per year for the index. A $1000 investment in the S&P500 in early 1957 would have provided you with an annual dividend income of about $40. In 2005 your dividend income would have grown to $610, assuming that you spent all your income. Furthermore your investment would have been worth over $32,000 by the end of 2007. With inflation assumed to be averaging around 3 – 4% per year, your investment in dividend paying stocks would provide you with an income that keeps its purchasing power year over year, which unlike fixed income securities, can also provide you with capital gains.
My strategy involves saving around half of my paycheck and investing it in the dividend achievers and the best high yield savings account that show consistent increases in dividends over time and the ability to cover those dividends in the future. I will have my screening method and my goals for passive income on my next posts. I would also try to describe my current net worth, and how it is invested. I hope that this blog will serve as an inspiration for people and that it would change their financial lives for the better.
(連結原文網址:http://www.dividendgrowthinvestor.com/2008/01/why-dividends.html)
內容摘要:(更正版本):
本文作者以「為什麼是股息？（Why dividends?）」來說明自己選擇投資高股息股票的理由。作者認為通過股息創造被動現金流，可逐步減少對於工作薪資的依賴，這也是達成財務自由相當重要的因素。作者研究後發現，將錢投資於債券、定期存單及貨幣市場基金，只能勉強打平通膨，長期下來也只能以些微之差小勝通膨。
但個股投資將會提供投資人最佳投資機會的可能。作者指出過去五十年裡，股票的報酬有超過30~35%來自於股息的貢獻。S＆P 500指數從1957年至2005年，股息平均每年增長5.3％。假設在1957年初，你投資1,000美元於標準普爾500指數，每年將獲得約40美元的股息收益。到了2005年，假設你花掉了所有配息並未再投入，股息收入仍將成長至610美元。此外，到了2007年底，這筆投資總價值將超過32,000美元。假定通貨膨脹以平均約3 – 4％的速度增長，投資配息股能年復一年地維持你的購買力，並同時提供資本利得，而不像固定收益證券只能拿回本金。作者在最後一段文章說明其理財策略為儲蓄50%的工資收入，並用以投資於股息持續成長的個股上。
(本文摘要參考google之翻譯結果,非全文照譯!如有疏漏之處,敬請來信提供寶貴意見!)
點子生活財經專欄作家-隨風來信指正及補充:
本文的CD指的是定期存單(Certificates of Deposit)，而不是信用違約交換(Credit default swap)，在財經英文文章中，信用違約交換的書寫方式會是CDS，而本文第一段使用的CD’s，表現的是定存單所提供的利息收入，其他類似的用法可參考「保羅的書」(Paul’s book)、「蘇珊的鞋」(Susan’s shoes)。
另外，a couple percentage points指的是很小的百分點，類似用法可參考「兩美元」(a couple of bucks)。
後面解說股息成長威力的段落，說明所有配息都被花掉而不是再投入，是很重要的，因為如果配息再投入，結果就會完全不同。
本文出處:http://wp.me/p3zMKy-15j
