Investing: Stock Portfolios

Ever heard the phrase “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”? Well this is because if you drop the basket, all the eggs break. This concept applies to your overall portfolio as well.

A healthy portfolio will have these key figures:

–          Cash: easily attained money from a checking or savings account

–          International Bonds: appreciating interest-based principle foreign payments

–          US Bonds: appreciating interest-based principle US payments

–          International Stocks: stocks in foreign either dividend or not based companies

–          US Stocks: stocks in domestic either dividend or not based companies

–          Alternatives: real estate, REITs (real estate investment stock), etc.

Investing: Dividends

Dividends, in short, are the money a company pays shareholders for buying shares from the profits they have made during their dividend period. For instance, for a company that pays an annual dividend, it would be out of the profit from that year. If a company pays out in March, June, September, and December, that is a quarterly dividend and the profits from each quarter would go to each respective dividend.