Stocks Going Ex Dividend the First Week of August

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends,' also commonly referred to as 'Dividend Capture.' This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets, and can work in flat or choppy markets, but you need to avoid the technique during bear markets.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks.

WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend in the near future. The list contains many dividend paying companies, lots with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date, and the yield.

TD Ameritrade	AMTD	8/2/2016	2.2%
Berkshire Hills Bancorp	BHLB	8/2/2016	3.0%
Sierra Bancorp	BSRR	8/2/2016	2.7%
CONE Midstream Partners LP	CNNX	8/2/2016	5.8%
Discover Financial Services	DFS	8/2/2016	2.1%
Heritage Financial Corporation	HFWA	8/2/2016	2.8%
Matson, Inc.	MATX	8/2/2016	2.1%
Intel Corp	INTC	8/3/2016	3.0%
Johnson Controls	JCI	8/3/2016	2.5%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found at wsnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn't show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out some of the other high yield stock lists at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WSNN.com. Most of the lists are free. 

Dividend definitions:

Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Monthly Dividend Stock List
Record date: the day when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks at two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Book now available: Buying Dividends Revised and Expanded

Book now available: Stock Market Trivia Makes a Great Gift!

Don't forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the First Week of February 2015

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends,' also commonly referred to as 'Dividend Capture.' This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets, and can work in flat or choppy markets, but you need to avoid the technique during bear markets.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend in the near future. The list contains many dividend paying companies, lots with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date, and the yield.

TD Ameritrade	AMTD	2/2/2015	1.8%
Enable Midstream Partners LP	ENBL	2/2/2015	6.6%

Xilinx	XLNX	2/2/2015	2.9%
Access National Corp	ANCX	2/3/2015	3.1%
Banco Bradesco S.A.	BBDO	2/3/2015	2.3%
Cardinal Financial Corp	CFNL	2/3/2015	2.5%
Dynagas LNG Partners LP	DLNG	2/3/2015	10.0%

Idacorp

IDA

2/3/2015

2.7%

MeadWestvaco

MWV

2/3/2015

2.0%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found at wsnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn't show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out some of the other high yield stock lists at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WSNN.com. Most of the lists are free. 

Dividend definitions:

Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Monthly Dividend Stock List
Record date: the day when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks at two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Book now available: Buying Dividends Revised and Expanded

Book now available: Stock Market Trivia Makes a Great Gift!

Don't forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

TD Ameritrade Offering $2,500 to Open an Account

If you are considering opening a new stock brokerage account, TD Ameritrade (AMTD) is offering $2,500 in Apple Gift Cards if you open an account with them. There is just a slight catch.

Actually, it is a pretty big catch. The account needs to be opened with $1 million; or if you already have an account with TDAmeritrade, yu just need to add $1 million to your account.

For those who don't have the million, with an account deposit of $50,000, you can receive $200 in Apple Gift Cards. More information can be found at tdameritrade.com/appleoffer.

How to Buy Stocks Putting Up Only 1% (No it's not the futures market, it's stocks)

Generally when you invest in stocks on margin, you normally have to put up 50% of the value of the stock, and you have a maintenance requirement of 30%. However, how would you like to have a margin requirement of only 1%, yes one percent! Think of the leverage you would have. Risks? I'll talk about risks in a minute.

This has nothing to do with the futures market, it is entirely legal, and it is offered by a major US investment brokerage firm.  Here are the details.

TDAmeritrade has now come up with something called Portfolio Margin for certain clients, which looks at the whole portfolio instead of individual stocks and options. Let's look at how this would work. This example is similar to what was shown in a write-up in an email flyer from TDAmeritrade.

Let's say you own 100 shares of a $100 stock for a total of $10,000 and a put on that stock with a strike price of 100 and a cost of 1 (or $100). Initially, you would put up $5,100. To maintain the position, you would need to have $3,000 or 30%. However, under this new Portfolio Margin Requirement, the maintenance amount would only be $100.

But wait a minute, you might say; what about the risk to both you and the brokerage firm? In actuality, your total risk is only $100. Let's examine what would happen in three scenarios.

The stock drops to $80 a share. You lose $2000 on the stock but make $2000 on the put (actually a profit of $1900 on the put for a net loss of only $100)

The stock does nothing. You make nothing on the stock and lose $100 on the put, for a net loss of only $100.

The stock goes to $120. You make $2000 on the stock, and lose $100 on the put, for a net profit of $1900.

So there you have it. Maximum total loss of only $100 and unlimited upside potential. This frees up a lot of cash in your portfolio and provides you with a huge amount of leverage.

I see only one major risk with the Portfolio Margin program from TDAmeritrade. If the put is very close to expiration, and you haven't made provisions to roll it over, and something happens to you where you are incapacitated and unable to access your account prior to the put expiring, you could have some major problems. Also, keep in mind that the higher the leverage, the more margin interest you would have to pay.

By Stockerblog.com

TD Ameritrade is Offering Commission-Free Trading

If you are looking for a way to get free trades, you can get 60 days of no commission trading with TDAmeritrade (AMTD). And if you put $25,000 into your account, they will throw in an additional $100. If you invest more, they will give you up to $600.

Earnings Announcements for Tomorrow

Earnings announcements for tomorrow:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

Cree Inc. (CREE)

CSX Corp. (CSX)

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (DD)

Ethan Allan Interiors (ETH)

Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX)

Google Inc. (GOOG)

II-VI Inc. (IIVI)

Kansas City Southern (KSU)

Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC)

PetMed Express Inc. (PETS)

RF Micro Devices (RFMD)

TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD)

Texas Instruments (TXN)

Verizon Communications (VZ)

27 Ways to Buy Facebook Stock Before It Goes Public

Ever since Facebook announced that the company will have its initial public offering later this year, I have been inundated with requests from friends, relatives, and acquaintances asking how they can buy stock in Facebook on the IPO. These are people who have never talked to me before about investments, and many have never invested before in their life. Normally, if an investor is lucky enough to buy a stock on the initial offering, the investor is usually rewarded with a huge gain in the stock price during the first day or two.

So how does one get stock as part of the initial offering? It's not just luck, it's wealth. First of all, the three lead underwriters are Morgan Stanley (MS), J. P. Morgan (JPM), and Goldman Sachs (GS). Underwriters are the investment brokerage firms that raise money for companies. They are also in charge of the allocation of shares to the investor. The second tier underwriters are BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, and Allen & Company.

So if you have an account with any of these firms, you might have a chance of getting some shares. Often, the underwriters will distribute shares to other brokerage firms, but with a popular offering like this, the allocation may be slim pickings. That's step one, the connection with the investment company. Step two is getting your broker to give you some shares.

According to a spokesman at TD Ameritrade (AMTD), they recently implemented a policy that you must have $250,000 in your account before you can be considered to receive shares of an IPO. That's the wealth part. Then if there is more demand for stock than are shares available, the firm would implement a lottery system to determine which clients would get shares.

Fortunately, there are other ways of buying shares in Facebook ahead of the stock offering, although the ownership of the shares would be indirect. One way would be to buy stocks of companies that have invested some of their funds in Facebook. An example is Microsoft (MSFT), which owns roughly 1.3% of the social networking giant. Of course, this ownership represents a very small portion of Microsoft's assets.

Another way of having some Facebook stock is through the ownership of mutual funds. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has turned up over 20 mutual funds that own shares of Facebook in varying degrees. Morgan Stanley has several funds that own Facebook such as Morgan Stanley Capital Opportunities (CPOAX), Morgan Stanley Focused Growth (AMOBX), and Morgan Stanley Inst Capital Growth (MSEQX).

The T. Rowe Price family of mutual funds has over a dozen funds with Facebook stock, including T. Rowe Price Media & Telecommunications Fund (PRMTX), T. Rowe Price Balanced Fund (RPBAX), T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund (TRBCX), T. Rowe Price Global Stock (PRGSX), and T. Rowe Price Global Technology Fund (PRGTX). Please note that for most of these funds, Facebook makes up a very small portion of the portfolio.

An alternative to investing in the mutual funds is to invest in the mutual fund management firm. T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) is the asset management holding company that manages the numerous mutual funds that own some shares of Facebook.

There are also a couple of closed end funds that own shares of Facebook. A closed end fund is similar to a mutual fund, in that it owns a diversified portfolio of stocks, however, mutual fund prices are based on the intrinsic value of the shares, called the Net Asset Value, whereas the price of a CEF is based on supply and demand and can trade way above or way below the net asset value. One of the CEFs is Firsthand Value Technology (SVVC), which has about 5% of its assets invested in Facebook.

The last alternative to buying the stock ahead of time is through one of the companies that handle private stock trading. Unfortunately, this option is only available to accredited investors. If you don't know what an accredited investor is, you probably aren't one.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, an individual accredited investor is "a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase, excluding the value of the primary residence of such person; or a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year. If you fall into this category, then you could consider contacting SharesPost or Second Market, otherwise, don't even try.

To see a list of over 25 of the companies that own Facebook stock, check out the free list at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, which can be downloaded, sorted, and updated.

Will Facebook be a hot stock? With 845 million users as of the end of 2011, that's a lot of potential buyers. If just one percent of Facebookers buy just 100 shares once the stock goes public, that's 845 million shares being purchased. By the way, the anticipated stock ticker symbol for Facebook is expected to be FB.

Disclosure: Author owns SVVC. No recommendations of any of the above stocks is expressed or implied.

By Stockerblog.com