About Dividend Opportunities

Does the endless string of Wall Street investment fads ever make you feel like you're missing something?

Well, please take a deep breath and relax. It's time to forget about the rocket scientists with their black boxes... the PhDs with their Greek formulas... and the high priests of Efficient Market Theory.

The most important investment decision you'll ever make pivots on something far more basic: how you treat the overlooked stepchild of Wall Street, the lowly dividend.

Although little respected and often ignored, more than 100 years of data point to the inescapable conclusion that owning hum-drum dividend-paying stocks... and then reinvesting those dividends... beats all other investment approaches hands down.

Your Choice: $3.3 Million or $116k?

Since 1926, dividends have contributed 42% of the total return delivered by the S&P 500. This makes a massive difference over the long haul.

A $1,000 investment in the S&P 500 in 1926 would be worth $3,313,712 today with dividends reinvested, but a mere $116,454* without the dividends. Underestimating the awesome edge income-paying securities gives you is the biggest mistake you can make in your investing life.

Higher Yields = Higher Safety, Too

A key reason that dividend-paying investments have clobbered the competition is because they fare so much better during bear markets. Over the vicious three years of 2000, 2001 and 2002, the stocks in the S&P 500 that paid dividends actually rose +10.4%, while the non-payers sank -33.19%.

There have been plenty of 10-year periods where dividends provided the only return for the S&P 500. Even in the roaring bull market of the 1990s, the lowly dividend provided 10-20% of total returns.

What Everyone "Knows" Is Wrong

Conventional wisdom says that if you take on more risk you're repaid with more reward. Yet that's not always true. The Nasdaq, known for its aggressive dividend-less technology stocks, actually underperformed dividend-heavy utility stocks over the 30-year run from 1971 to 2001. Even with the Nasdaq's spectacular run in the 1990s, utilities still came out on top -- while incurring about half the volatility along the way.

The Last Free Lunch?

I'd never claim that every stock in your portfolio has to be a high-yielder -- but dividend-paying investments offer the most compelling risk-reward trade-off you can find. They also give you a smooth path to wealth instead of heart-stopping peaks and plunges.

Dividend-paying stocks are much less jumpy than their stingier brethren. In fact, they have been only 10% as volatile as the market while producing their market-beating returns. It's one of the few free lunches in investing: You can get better returns and lower risk just by purchasing dividend-paying stocks.

Our mission at Dividend Opportunities is to help you track down the safest, highest-yielding securities throughout both the U.S. and abroad. So if you want to keep your money out of long-term losers like bank accounts and CDs and put it to work in tireless investments that will keep on giving, you're in the right place.

We're In this Together

My name is Carla Pasternak, and I serve as the chief investment strategist for Dividend Opportunities.

All we do is help you profit from dependable cash-in-hand securities that steadily steamroll ahead, compounding their gains into ever-higher total returns. We report to no one but you. If our in-depth articles, investing ideas and educational guidance don't increase your wealth, we know we will lose your trust and your readership. And we'd deserve to.

We accept no advertising for our picks. Nobody owns us. And we track the performance of all of our investing ideas, so you always know how much money we're making for you.

We have one purpose and one purpose only -- safely making you wealthy. Without a lot of nail biting and never more than a thimbleful of risk.

On the contrary, when you try Dividend Opportunities, the risk is all ours. (Try getting your broker to take a risk.) You don't risk a penny because we're pleased to offer our weekly email newsletter and our DividendOpportunities.com web site 100% free of charge.

Our Mission

Dividend Opportunities is devoted exclusively to helping self-directed income investors generate higher yields and greater returns from their portfolio holdings. Nowhere will you find a more thorough analysis of current trends, events, and income-generating opportunities than in this weekly investment bulletin.

We leave no stone unturned in our search for high yields -- and we don't stop at income alone. The stories and companies we profile in Dividend Opportunities are attractively valued, with more upside potential than downside risk. We look for high-quality companies with leading or rising market shares, top-notch management and solid balance sheets. And we prefer companies with the wind at their backs -- those benefiting from either a long-term trend or a short-term catalyst that's likely to boost financial performance (or, better yet, both).

Subscribe to Dividend Opportunities and you'll join a growing brotherhood of like-minded income lovers who share our love for reliable investment ideas delivering above-average income and strong capital gains.

And when I say "investment ideas," I mean not only stocks, but also bonds, mutual funds, preferred stocks, ETFs, royalty trusts, closed-end funds, Canadian income trusts, etc. We cover every class of income investment in Dividend Opportunities. In fact, after reading a few issues, you'll undoubtedly find a few exotic asset classes that you probably never even knew existed!

So if you haven't done so already, I encourage you to sign up for a FREE subscription to Dividend Opportunities. You won't be obligated to purchase anything, we'll keep your email address private, and you can cancel at any time. You truly have nothing to lose, so sign up for Dividend Opportunities now and start profiting from the world's highest-yielding securities!

On behalf of our entire research staff here at Dividend Opportunities, I'd like to thank you for joining us and for taking the time to review our income-investing analysis!

Sincerely,

Carla Pasternak
Chief Investment Strategist, Dividend Opportunities

*numbers as of 2008