Dividends Still Don't Lie: The Truth About Investing in Blue Chip Stocks and Winning in the Stock Market

Chapter 3. The Dividend-Value Strategy

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

—Lewis Carroll

Any serious student of the stock market and investment history is undoubtedly aware of the vast collection of colorful characters that have achieved either fame, infamy, or both for their spectacular successes and/or even more spectacular failures. Many of these stories are true; an equal number, perhaps more, are myths.

Whether these stories are true is unimportant, what these characters represent is: winning and losing. Everybody loves a winner and more often than not we in the United States turn them into heroes. When it comes to investing in the stock market, however, many investors can more readily identify with the losers than the winners, which is unfortunate.

Losing money hurts more than just the pocketbook; it vexes the soul. When you take a loss in the stock market, it is not uncommon to feel a variety of emotions: anger, guilt, perhaps humiliation. The fact is that, if you invest long enough, you are going to take your share of losses; nobody gets a free pass.

No matter your level of intelligence, success in the stock market can be elusive and transitory. Over the course of my career I have met many people who were flat out brilliant in their field of endeavor, yet who were completely hapless when it came to investing in the stock market. In many cases, these brilliant people, who in the rest of their life have experienced nothing but success, have chosen ...