Tag: dennis miller

High Yield Dividend Stocks: What Every Investor Should Look For

Posted on by The INO.com Team

It can be mighty hard to earn any interest at all in today’s banking environment. Many in­vestors are looking to riskier investments to find the kind of returns they once got from an FDIC-insured CD or even a savings account.

But don’t despair. There are still a few decent ways to make your cash earn some income without putting it at too great a risk.

My wife takes care of our filing, and during one of her filing sprees some time ago she walked into my office with the brokerage statement for her IRA and asked me why the interest was less than $1. “Interest rates have gone down that much,” I said.

She replied, “That’s terrible,” and turned around, went back into her office, and stuffed the statement into the appropriate file. Continue reading "High Yield Dividend Stocks: What Every Investor Should Look For" →

Are You A Good Candidate for a Reverse Mortgage?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Two of the top subjects that my Money Forever readers have asked us to cover are annuities, specifically how to pick the right one and covered in the November issue with a companion “how-to” special report (click here for how to get your copy), and reverse mortgages. My guess they’re seeing all those TV ads featuring Henry Winkler and Robert Wagner and wondering if it’s right for them.

Quite simply a reverse mortgage is where you give the bank a mortgage on your home based on your current equity. In return, the mortgage company agrees to pay you a certain amount every month for some period of time: until you die, move out, or celebrate your 100th birthday (the age when they’re generally capped). For a reverse mortgage to be a good investment, you have to outlive your expected mortality and stay in your home. Continue reading "Are You A Good Candidate for a Reverse Mortgage?" →

The 12 Rules to Follow for Buying Dividend Stocks

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Many of you have probably filled out one of the "retirement planner" forms available online. Plenty of tax and accounting programs also have "Lifetime Planner" sections for folks to determine if they can afford to retire.

These sorts of programs plug certain assumptions into a formula, such as projected inflation rate, retirement income, anticipated spending levels, and portfolio growth rate. After you add your personal information, it projects how much money you'll be able to produce annually during retirement, and how long it will last.

The first time I ran these numbers, the program said I was good until 116 years of age. At the time, I believed that if we followed the plan as outlined, my wife and I would never have any real money worries. We'd be set for the rest of our lives and could proudly leave some to our children to help with their retirement. How naïve of me! Continue reading "The 12 Rules to Follow for Buying Dividend Stocks" →

How Should You Get Started?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

How much gold is enough? How much should you allocate to dividend-paying stocks? How much should you hold in cash? How can you sort through the vast number of opportunities out there?

When it comes to building and managing your retirement portfolio, it's common to feel overwhelmed and just want to throw your hands in the air!

One of the biggest surprises since starting Miller's Money Forever is the kind of questions I've received from our readers. The vast majority are about the process behind selecting investments and building a balanced portfolio, and very few are about this or that stock.

Most readers understand that sitting on cash during times of inflation is a bad thing. At the same time, they are reluctant to invest in an uncertain market. Continue reading "How Should You Get Started?" →

The Five Criteria for Every Investment

Posted on by The INO.com Team

A recent reader question is from Alex L, who is a member of my Super Sports Roadster club, a “collaborator-friend,” and big help in getting the Miller’s Money Forever project started:

“Dennis, you started actively managing your portfolio when your CDs got called in and you were sitting on cash. What do you suggest for people who already have a portfolio but might want to rearrange it a bit?”

It’s a good question, and one that I’ve been asked frequently. Let me reinforce one critical point. Do not do what I did and start reading newsletters and buying into investments because they sound like winners. There is a good chance you’ll just compound any problems in your portfolio. (I have an article from my Miller’s Money Weekly service titled “Getting the Most from Your Investment Newsletters” that explains how to use investment research from investment newsletters and make sure it fits into your strategy.)

A major component of my business career was consulting for small businesses. This was usually a three-step endeavor. First, the client recognized they had a problem and usually had a pretty good idea of what they needed to do to solve it. Second, they asked for help because they didn’t know how to implement their solution. And that’s where I stepped in: putting the solution into action. Continue reading "The Five Criteria for Every Investment" →