I utilize them quite often. in fact high yield dividend stocks had been a very large part of my portfolio last year. most of the really high yields were tied into interest rates and they become risky as they rise. I've pulled out of stocks like NLY, CLS, IVR. Actually I think it was late last spring i pulled out of them. But those companies make insanely high profits when interest rates are low. so they can afford to pay the big dividends 10% + I guess it all depends on whether or not you are willing to ride out the drop in stock vallue but still retain the high dividend yield. i pulled out and went into stocks like american airlines and philip morris, michael kors. but i'll probably buy back into some of the high yields at lower rates again in the future
OK, I understand a bit better. Thank you very much. Right now my only stock is Green Hunter Resources Series C (GHRprC). It's taken a bit of a hit in value, but it's been coming back. On 12/2/13 bought 35 shares @ $679, and they charge $7 when either buying or selling shares @ Scottrade. Right now it is sitting @ $651.0035. It pays monthly, so each share I'm harvesting $0.2083 a month, or $7.29 at the end of each month. Not bad, but I don't know if it's worth the anxiety when it keeps dipping down in value and then back up. Gets the stomach knotted at times. Been considering some dividend aristocrats like AT&T (T), but it's so expensive just to buy one stock, like around $40-50 or more.
are these available to anyone who wishes to buy stock? How does one get the "preferred" status? YES, I know, google is my friend BUT I want to get the inside dope from our experts. I'm a novice in this field except to say that I watch how banks have increased their stranglehold over this great nation's gov't
Oh yeah. I use an online brokerage firm called Scottrade. Absolutely anyone can buy any kind of stock, to my knowledge (which ain't much
). Basically when it comes to stocks there are two main kinds: Common and Preferred stocks. Common stocks are your typical stocks. You buy fractions of a company, and with its successes and losses your shares increase or decrease in value. If your fortunate, and you buy a lot of common stock, and then that company does really well and its value shoots up, you can then sell that stock and make a good profit, which is called capital appreciation. For example, if you buy shares(also called stocks) at $8, and in that day it shoots up to $15, if you sell all of that stock you make a profit (before taxes) of $7 per each stock. So just imagine if you had bought 1,000 shares, and each share appreciated by $7. That's, like, $7,000 in profit from that one trade. When you buy and sell a stock, that's known as a trade.
With preferred stocks, you buy a stock and it pays you a lot more in dividends. HOWEVER, preferred stocks don't budge much when there are shifts in the market, so if a company has a windfall, its common stock will shoot up with it, but its preferred stock won't go up much, if at all. Then again, preferreds not going up or down much when there are major shifts in the market is a good thing, because they're staying near their value, and still paying dividends.
Also, common stock owners get more influence when it comes to the upper management of that stock's corporation, whereas preferred stocks don't. But, if a company goes bankrupt, common stock owners get paid dead last, whereas preferred stock owners get paid before common stock owners, and after bondholders.
If you want to go where I went to learn about everything stock markets and investing, check out Investopedia.com. To get you started here are the links I used to learn about
common and
preferred stocks.
