There is one event and one event only that investors know will happen and for how much on Wall Street; and that is the payment of a dividend. The dividend payment, amount and date are announced well in advance.
John D. Rockefeller once had this to say about happiness. “Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends come in.”
If you’re rich enough – or otherwise have access to your local private country club’s locker room – sooner or later you’ll hear a pair of wealthy golfers discussing their preferred stock holdings.
According to a recent study by Black Rock International, at the end of February 2011, the global ETF industry had 2,557 ETFs with 5,802 listings and assets of $1.3 trillion (in U.S. dollars) from 140 providers on 48 exchanges around the world.
What to make of the current inflationary economic climate? To hear a government economist tell it, it’s basically “nothing to worry folks. Nothing to see here.”
Former President Ronald Reagan once defined inflation as “violent as a mugger, as frightening as a mugger, and as deadly as a hit man.”