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Top 22 Warren Buffett Quotes the Internet Can’t Get Enough Of

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Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has a net worth of over $78.2 billion and is known as one of the greatest investors of all time. So when he speaks, people take note.

Here are some of the top 22 Warren Buffett Quotes the internet can’t get enough of.

Warren Buffett Quotes Infographic

Top 22 Warren Buffett Quotes The Internet Can’t Get Enough Of

Here are some of the top Warren Buffet quotes found on every list of Warren Buffet quotes around the internet. These quotes range in wisdom on investing to regular life. I try to live by these quotes on my own investment portfolio.

Warren Buffett Quotes

1. Rule #1: Never lose money. Rule #2: Never forget rule #1

One of my favorite Warren Buffet Quotes. The fastest way to grow your money is to never lose it in the first place. This applies from saving on your groceries to focusing on less risky stocks of well established companies.

2. It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently

Think about the Wells Fargo or Equifax scandals. It takes years to build enough trust for someone to have brand loyalty. Warren Buffet quotes it takes 20 years, but it takes 5 minutes or less to destroy all that goodwill you’ve built. People are quick to revolt if you’ve done anything to betray their trust.

It is infinitely harder to build trust than destroy it.

3. Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing.

Multiple studies show that diversification in the stock market will help protect you against market falls. Or it could be summarized in the old proverb “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Unless you have insider information that a stock is going do really well, maintain a diversified portfolio to protect you. No one knows what they’re doing all the time.

4. If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value.

Unless you’re a day trader (I will never be), you should only be investing in the stock market with the intention to hold those stocks for a long time. You can do really well as a beginner if you’re buying stocks and not planning on selling till you retire. Those are where you get the best returns. Warren Buffett is infamously known for rarely selling stocks.

5. It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

When you buy a stock, you should think of it as owning a piece of that company. You should be looking at wonderful companies that have a competitive advantage in the industry. Those are the companies that will do well over the long run. You may find a wonderful price on a mediocre company, but really what are you getting? A mediocre company that will likely be edged out of the market by a better company.

Many of the famous Warren Buffett quotes are about investing in strong companies with a competitive advantage and strong brand loyalty rather than cheap companies where you think you can make a quick buck. Warren Buffett is never into buying a company for a quick buck.

6. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.

During the 2008 financial crisis when investors were all exiting the market, Warren Buffett invested in a few large companies even though their stock prices were falling. Those deals made Warren Buffett over $10 billion dollars when the market stabilized and it’s continuing to show dividends. When the market goes upside down during world events, politics, market forecasts, those are the times when everyone else is fearful, that Warren Buffet sees an advantage when the markets crash.

Think about it this way, the New York Stock Exchange has been around since 1817, it has always recovered. Chances are, minus a world apocalypse, that the market will always bounce back. Those who capitalize on those downturns are usually rewarded.

7. The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.

One of my favorite Warren Buffett quotes because it has so many applications. You will see many opportunities in your life and you may want to jump on everyone, but it’s ok to be selective and say no. You’ll burn yourself out if you say “yes” to everything. This also applies to going out on a Saturday night with friends drinking. It’s ok to say “no” to save a few dollars or have a night to yourself to finish your article on Warren Buffett quotes. =)

This also applies to going out on a Saturday night with friends drinking. It’s ok to say “no” to save a few dollars or have a night to yourself to finish your article on Warren Buffett quotes. =)

8. Develop and build the habits you admire in others.

Remember all those times that your parents wanted you to hang out with those “good kids”. The habits of the people you surround yourself with rub off you on, consciously or unconsciously. When you find people like Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, who is one of the greatest investors of all time. You should find out what makes him so successful and learn those traits to improve yourself.

9. Passive investing will make you more money than active trading

Oh my goodness, fees are the WORST! Active trading requires more work and more fees, so more of your money will be paid to your broker. Yet studies have shown over and over that passive investing where you set your money and forget it are far more successful for growing wealth. I don’t plan to ever touch my stocks currently making dividends.

10. There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

Great quote, people always imagine things are more difficult than they really are. When I first considered starting investing, I thought there were so many hurdles and financial experts I would have to pay. Yet, when I finally decided I wanted to start investing in the stock market, I just downloaded the Robinhood App and started investing. It took 10 minutes to sign up and buy my first stock when I worried about investing in the stock market for over 5 years. Things are often more simple than you think they are.

11. Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you who you’ll turn out to be.

This is similar to the Warren Buffett quote “Develop and build the habits you admire in others”. If you want to be an entrepreneur, start joining local meetups of entrepreneurs. You learn SO MUCH MORE when you surround yourself with the people you want to be like. You can learn A LOT in a book, but you’ll learn even more by surrounding yourself with people you admire.

12. We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good.

No one can predict the stock market, no one. Not even Warren Buffett. Anyone who says they know exactly how the market works is trying to sell you something. You can lump stock forecasters being as accurate as the carnival fortune-tellers. You know the ones with 3 teeth, crystal ball and you’re going to die in 2083.

13. When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.

If you invest in an outstanding company, even if the stock price goes up, why would you ever sell it? No matter when you sell it, outstanding companies will continually do better and better. Don’t sell until you absolutely have to, otherwise, you’ll just be losing money in the long run. Many of Warren Buffett Quotes are like this, they are all very Anti-Day Trader.

14. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ.

If you follow the basic principals of Warren Buffett and buy outstanding companies with strong competitive advantages like Apple (AAPL). You don’t have to be a genius. Just buy and hold forever, you literally don’t have to do anything until you sell.

Many Warren Buffett quotes are similar to this because he stresses that anyone can invest in the stock market. The simplest way is just to invest in index funds that follow the market. Set it and forget it. The market sees an average increase of 7% per year and that’s WAY better than a savings account.

15. I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.

Look for companies to invest in that are so strong that they can weather any storm because soon enough they will have to. Think about Apple (AAPL), as long as they keep pushing out iPhones it doesn’t matter who runs the company, they’ll continue to do well. People were worried when Steve Jobs passed because they didn’t know the future of the company, but Tim Cook stepped in and maintained the same Apple legacy. As long as Tim Cook sticks to the secret Apple recipe, they’ll be in good shape.

16. Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up.

If you see a company that you think is going to do well or heard will do well, don’t buy it unless you’re willing to hold it for awhile. If something goes wrong and the stock dives, you’re stuck with a company you don’t believe in and will likely sell at a lower price to get rid of it, ruining the reason you bought it in the first place.

17. Wall Street is the only place that people ride to work in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

This is just a funny Warren Buffet quote.

18. Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them.

I’m sure Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have learned how to solve difficult business problems, but the best way to navigate murky waters is to avoid them all together. The more problems your business can avoid, the better shape you’ll be. You can avoid a lot of problems from being proactive instead of reactive.

19. Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that “Price is what you pay; value is what you get.”

Ben Graham, Warren Buffett’s mentor had this popular quote. I always think about it simply. Price is what you buy a stock for and Value is what you sell that same stock for.

20. It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

If you can’t tell, Warren Buffett believes in surrounding yourself with the right people. He credits much of his success from surrounding himself with smart, good people.

21. If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

When you analyze a stock based on its historical performance, it’s called technical analysis. Yet past performance does not necessarily mean future performance. Just because you know what the stock has done in the past doesn’t mean it’s going to follow that same trend.

22. You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

It’s ok to mess up, focus on learning from those mistakes for the next time. It just sounds cooler when Warren Buffett quotes it. Or you can take this as no matter how many mistakes you’ve made in the past, you always have a chance to do more good. It’s one of those life quotes that can go many ways.

How to Find the Best High Dividend Stocks

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We often hear that Millennials are terrible investors because most Millennials entered the workforce during the 2008 financial crisis. Afterward, many hesitated to invest after seeing their families lose money, and those who often invested very conservatively. Many have avoided stocks, even the more conservative high dividend stocks. Which begs the question - have Millennials changed their investment strategies? Let's take a look. #personalfinance #investing #investingtips #stockmarket We often hear that Millennials are terrible investors because most Millennials entered the workforce during the 2008 financial crisis. Afterward, many hesitated to invest after seeing their families lose money, and those who often invested very conservatively. Many have avoided stocks, even the more conservative high dividend stocks.

Which begs the question – have Millennials changed their investment strategies? Let’s take a look.

With 20/20 hindsight, most people would agree that not investing during the turbulent 2008 financial crisis was a regret. Shortly after, we saw one of the greatest economic booms to the economy and those who invested made some of the greatest returns.

At this time, Millennials are facing their second economic recession with the 2020 pandemic (or third recession if we count the 2001 September 11th financial swing). Being recession veterans, they’re betting on a strong economic recovery.

Popular Millennial Stocks

This has been seen by Financial Brokerage Platforms like Robinhood, popular among Millennials. The platform gained 10 million users from 2016 to 2020 and added 3 million users during the pandemic.

By living through a strong economic recovery, Millennials show they are more comfortable with the stock market and purchasing stocks with their creative ways to make money.

The primary stocks that Millennials are purchasing are tech stocks (Tesla, Microsoft, Apple). As well as companies with strong brand awareness (Virgin Galactic, Amazon, Peloton) according to Robinhood’s list of 100 popular stocks.

Interestingly, some of these popular Millennial stocks offer dividends and create a rise in dividend investing. Dividend stocks traditionally offer stable returns and lower volatility, providing comfort to those Millennials with the 2008 financial crisis still fresh in their minds.

Millennials are gaining regular dividends, and additional portfolio growth as dividend stocks have outperformed their peers from 1990 to 2015 (source).

What Are Dividends

If you’re not familiar with dividends, here is a short recap.

Dividends are a portion of the company’s earnings that are distributed to shareholders. In addition to the value of a company’s stock going up, dividends are an additional payment sent to shareholders simply for owning the company.

Dividend payments are sent typically monthly, quarterly, or on an annual timeline, and determined by the company’s board of directors.

The types of companies that usually offer dividends are traditionally more established companies.

Dividend Investing Is a Growing Trend

Dividend Investing is a growing trend investment strategy involving owning primarily stocks that offer dividends. The idea is that by owning enough stocks that offer dividends, those dividend payments can eventually entirely replace your income for retirement.

Retirees may save up a large retirement nest egg, but they will eventually need to sell those stocks for money in retirement. Often using the rule of 4% to get the longest life out of their nest egg. All while hoping their nest egg doesn’t run out before they die.

The benefit of dividend investing is that there is no need to sell their stocks by retiring on the dividend income. The dividend payments from your stocks can cover all your expenses till the end of life. This helps ensure you have a consistent income stream in retirement and the ability to leave a sizeable inheritance for your heirs.

Take into consideration Warren Buffett, arguably one of the greatest investors who ever lived. He has a $200 billion portfolio through Berkshire Hathaway, consisting of 47 stocks. Two-thirds of those stocks have one thing in common – they provide dividends.

What Is The Average Dividend Yield

We established dividends are a portion of the company’s earnings distributed to shareholders, but how much do shareholders get?

Each company sets its own divided as a fixed dollar amount per share owned. However, the industry typically gauges dividend amounts as a dividend yield. This is the dividend compared to the current value of the stock. So while the dividend amount is typically pretty consistent dollar value, the dividend yield changes daily as the stock price changes.

In the S&P 500, which gauges 500 popular American companies. The average dividend yield of the S&P 500 is 2.00%. So, for every $100 you invest in the S&P 500, you will earn $2 annually in dividend payments.

What Are High Dividend Stocks?

High Dividend Stocks are typically stocks that offer a dividend yield greater than the average 2.00%.

Typically high dividend stocks come from companies with strong cash flow such as:

  • REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust)
  • Oil & Gas Companies
  • Telecommunication Companies
  • Utilities
  • Banks

High Dividend Stocks do have risks. Companies have been known to offer high dividends to attract investors. However, they may have trouble maintaining their high dividend yield in the long term, and their stock price may suffer. You should always be careful about these and do your research.

 

 

Popular High Dividend Stocks

Here are some popular high dividend stocks that have strong brand recognition and high dividend yields.

Bank High Dividend Stocks

Citigroup (C) – Dividend Yield 4.74%

Citigroup is one of the big four banks in the United States and JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. They offer financial services such as consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, and wealth management. Citigroup is referred to as too big to fail with a market cap of 90.7 billion. When a company is too big to fail, that’s a nice assurance that it’ll continue to keep up its dividend.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) – Dividend Yield 3.55%

JPMorgan Chase is considered the largest bank in the United States and seventh-largest in the world by total assets. These amount to around $3.2 trillion. The JPMorgan brand is used for banking services, while the Chase brand is used for credit card services.

JPMorgan continues to have a healthy balance sheet and shows they’ll be able to maintain their high dividend stock even during a turbulent 2020.

Energy Company High Dividend Stocks

ExxonMobil (XOM) – Dividend Yield 10.19%

ExxonMobil is the third-largest publicly traded oil and gas company behind Chevron and Saudi Aramco. While oil prices have lately decreased and 2020 has not been kind to any stocks. ExxonMobil continues to maintain a high dividend stock for investors. Plus, there’s a comfort knowing the world will always need electricity.

Chevron (CVX) – Dividend Yield 7.07%

Chevron is another oil & gas company and recently overtook ExxonMobil for the world’s 2nd largest energy company. CVX has been a bit more conservative in its acquisitions and spending. Those choices have created a strong balance sheet for the company to maintain a great high dividend stock.

Edison (EIX) – Dividend Yield 4.53%

Edison is a utility company that generates, transmits, and distributes electricity in the United States, primarily in California. Utility companies like Edison have a fairly stable income stream as there is usually little competition, which helps them maintain high dividend yields.

DCP Midstream (DCP) – Dividend Yield 12.05%

DCP Midstream is also in the oil & gas industry, focusing primarily on transportation. They have 51,000 miles of natural gas pipelines and 44 natural gas processing plants in the united states, making it one of the larger midstream companies.

As they make a good portion of money transporting oil & gas, their revenue depends heavily on the oil price. Right now, oil is priced low, but as that changes, this high dividend stock has a potential upswing for growth.

Real Estate High Dividend Stocks

Realty Income Corporation (O)- Dividend Yield 4.64%

Realty Income is known as the monthly dividend company. Popular among dividend investors as they pay dividends every month. They are a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns 6,541 properties in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom. They earn money through long-term leases on their properties, which uniquely positions them to weather most short-term economic swings.

Plus, their major tenants are Walgreens, 7-Eleven, Dollar General, FedEx, Dollar Tree. These companies aren’t easily going to get replaced by online eCommerce. If their stable cash flow wasn’t enticing enough, their high monthly dividend of 4.64% is pretty great.

Universal Health Realty Trust (UHT) – Divined Yield 5.01%

Universal Health Realty Trust is another REIT but focuses on hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, free-standing emergency departments, sub-acute facilities, medical office buildings, and child care facilities. UHT earns money through long-term leases to these healthcare facilities located primarily in Arizona, Nevada, and Texas.

This stock has taken a beating during 2020. Healthcare facilities have had to put off higher-paying services as they adapt their facilities for COVID. Even with the recent stock price fall, it still offers an attractive dividend with growth as the economy improves.

Simon Property Group (SPG) – Dividend Yield 8.02%

Simon Property Group is another interesting REIT on this list. They are the second-largest real estate investment trust in the United States with a significant portfolio in malls, outlets, and large complexes with big-box retailers.

However, the rise of eCommerce has been brutal to Simon Property Group. Plus, 2020 has not been kind to in-person retail. Simon has many assets but needs a significant plan to navigate a future post-COVID and continue to compete with Amazon.

Iron Mountain (IRM) – Dividend Yield 8.99%

Another high-dividend stock on our list. Iron Mountain stores information. They store physical records as well as digital records for companies around the world. This includes 220,000 customers throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

With over 1,500 storage locations, including underground caves for added security, Iron Mountain is a great solution for companies needing secure offsite storage. Also, they’ve seen significant growth in digital storage. Their recurring revenue through storage services helps maintain their high dividend stock.

Telecommunication High Dividend Stocks

Verizon (VZ) – Dividend Yield 4.3%

Verizon is a well-known brand as they offer wireless telephone services to around 93 million people across the United States. Making it one of the largest phone services in the country. They primarily focus on wireless connectively, making about 70% of their revenue.

Also their Verizon Media Group, they earn revenue from their acquisitions of AOL and Yahoo. Verizon has a strong recurring revenue subscriber base making it a great high dividend stock.

AT&T (T) – Dividend Yield 7.61%

AT&T has been a staple in telecommunications for ages. Their wireless telephone services make about 40% of their revenue, but they’re a bit more diverse. They also have DirectTV, Warner Media (HBO, Warner Brothers, Turner cable networks, etc.).

This diversity has helped AT&T stay relevant, but companies like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney + continue to bite off their network tv revenue.

CenturyLink (LUMN) – Dividend Yield 10.14%

CenturyLink is now Lumen Technologies. A recent name change occurred in September 2020. Lumen is one of the United States’ largest telecommunication companies offering internet services to businesses (75% of revenue) and individual consumers.

With 450,000 miles of fiber connecting people to the internet, Lumen has the infrastructure smaller companies can’t compete with. This helps maintain its market share and high-dividend payouts.

Cisco (CSCO) – Dividend Yield 3.59%

Cisco is not well known by individual consumers. Yet CSCO is one of the world’s largest hardware and software suppliers for networking solutions for businesses. They help companies build their own networks with routers, switches, video conferencing software, data centers, security, and more.

What’s great is that they sell the physical hardware companies need and the software as a subscription for recurring revenue to support that great high dividend stock.

high-dividend-stocks

Technology High Dividend Stocks

IBM (IBM) – Dividend Yield 5.18%

IBM is a hardware and software technology company that focuses on cloud computing, artificial intelligence, commerce, data & analytics, IT Infrastructure, security, and a wide range of digital products. They have been paying a dividend since 1916 and considered a solid dividend payer.

They’ve recently made acquisitions of companies like Red Hat to reduce their dividend growth for a bit. These acquisitions will still pay off in billions for the long-term and help maintain IBM’s significant high dividend stock.

Aerospace & Defense High Dividend Stocks

General Dynamics (GD) – Dividend Yield 3.08%

General Dynamics is the 5th largest US defense contractor and business jet manufacturer of Gulfstreams. Being a defense contractor, they receive military contracts that are less susceptible to market swings. They currently have $82.7 billion in backlog, including two US Navy submarines, Abrams tanks, and more.

As United States Defense spending continuing to rise, General Dynamics will continue to benefit as a reputable company in the defense field. For investors, this could be a great high dividend stock to hold on to for the long term.

 

 

Insurance High Dividend Stocks

MetLife (MET) – Dividend Yield 4.68%

MetLife is the largest life insurer in the United States and one of the world’s largest as they operate in 40 countries. They make money from premiums, investing income before insurance payouts, and retirement solutions such as annuities.

COVID will certainly have an impact on the insurance business. MetLife is better positioned than other life insurance agencies to weather the storm and maintain its high-dividend stock.

Disclosure: I personally hold O, IRM, VZ, DCP, CSCO. This article was written by myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. Nor do I have any business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. For a full list of my entire stock portfolio, visit Wallet Squirrel.

This article originally appeared on Your Money Geek and has been republished with permission.

3 Reasons Why Monthly Dividend Stocks Are Better than Quarterly

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Starting to get into dividend investing? Here are 3 reasons you should be looking at monthly dividend stocks rather than quarterly. Earn some extra passive income through dividend investing.

Here on Wallet Squirrel, every day we are finding new ways to earn money and investing those profits to build an online stock portfolio. Our stock portfolio is exclusively made of dividend stocks, so in the future, we can live off the income produced by those dividends. As investors, we have some preferences on why monthly dividend stocks are better than quarterly.

All Hail Dividends

If you’re curious about what dividends are, our best summation is that they are a portion of a company’s profits that are distributed to shareholders regularly.

If you want to know more, check out our What Are Dividends article. There are a lot of companies that produce dividends (why I love them), but receiving dividends monthly is pretty awesome!

Why Monthly Dividends Stocks are Awesome!

  1. Monthly Dividend Stocks are way easier to budget for – If you’re waiting quarterly for those dividend checks, you’re forced to budget that income for the next several months. A lump sum you have to let sit in your bank account tempting you to spend it. No matter your willpower, you’ll always be thinking “I’d be willing to eat Ramen Noodles for the next month if I bought a boat right now”. You’ll be the most sodium-rich sea captain. You’re better than that.
  2. Better Compound Interest – If you’re receiving dividends every month, you can use that to reinvest in more stocks and have those dividends grow more by the time your other quarterly stocks arrive. Simply, the faster you reinvest those dividends, the faster they’ll compound interest. For Example, if you owned 1,000 shares of a $10 stock at a 5% annual dividend. At the end of the year, you’ll have earned 5% at $500. However, if you received monthly dividends, you could reinvest those dividends each month and have earned 5.12% at $511.62. This is assuming you have a DRIP campaign set up. However it’s obviously more, and that’s only one year.
  3. It’s enjoyable seeing regular income – There is something incredibly satisfying as an investor seeing their investments create monthly income. It feels like you’re earning extra as your stock price fluctuates, you’re still seeing income being produced. You can reinvest or spend that monthly income but it gives you extra cash each month to play with.

 

 

What Type of Companies Produce Monthly Dividends?

You’ll mostly find monthly dividend companies limited to Real Estate Investment Trust, Business Development Companies and sometimes Master Limited Partnerships.

  • Real Estate Investment Trust – is essentially a company that owns multiple properties and generates income based on those properties. They can specialize in different real estate niches such as commercial property, apartments, office buildings, hospitals, etc. Each REIT usually has a specific focus and most produce dividends.
  • Business Development Companies – are organizations that invest in small to medium-sized companies to help them grow in pivotal stages of their development. Their income is made up of their investments in companies.
  • Master Limited Partnerships – are organizations that generate predictable income streams based on production/processing/storage and transportation of depletable natural resources.

Are you invested in any monthly dividend stocks? Tell me about them.

Why I Just Invested In The Dividend Stock, Iron Mountain

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My goal on Wallet Squirrel is to find new ways to earn extra money and then invest what I make into my stock portfolio of dividend stocks. These dividend stocks are key, because my goal is to invest in enough dividend producing stocks that they may replace my current income. To do this, I need to invest more and my latest stock is Iron Mountain Incorporated, stock ticker (IRM).

Let me introduce Iron Mountain (IRM)

If you’re not familiar with this company, let’s hit a brief overview. Iron Mountain is a storage company, storing physical records as well as data centers for companies.

Physical Storage Items

The types of physical storage vary greatly from anything you could imagine a company wanting to store. These could be HR files, to legal, to extra storage. In fact, 95% of the Fortune 1000 uses Iron Mountain. They also mention a range of geological samples to fine art as storage capabilities they offer. These are storied in over 1,400 facilities, covering 87.5 million square feet of storage around the world, including a legit underground vault.

Digital Storage Items

Iron Mountain also has extensive digital storage systems that allow companies to electronically back up their systems. These are both in the form of storing disk drives of important systems, as well as their “Iron Cloud” as their enterprise cloud-storage platform. As cybercrime continues to become a bigger and bigger problem, companies are paying big money to have several working copies of their systems backed up. They expect their cloud storage to produce 7% of their total revenue in 2020. The total revenue for 2017 was 3.8 billion.

Why I Personally Like Iron Mountain

Reoccurring Revenue

I’m a huge fan of companies with reoccurring revenue because it’s dependable. Iron Mountain as a storage company holds company records for quite a long time. In fact, they’re still holding onto 50% of the boxes that were stored in their facilities over 15 years. As more legislature mandates companies to store physical copies for longer and longer. Iron Mountain is an ideal, service for these needs. Plus as their cloud business continues to grow, people continue to pay large contracts for years at a time to continue and hold their back up needs.

Technical Analysis

Technical Analysis is looking at their past performance to indicate how they will do in the future. Of course, past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, but I like to see that a company is consistently doing well. I usually do this by looking at their stock price over the max course of their life. Here is the trending graph for Iron Mountain (IRM). I typically like to see this chart shoot up and to the right. Despite some bumps, it continues to move in that direction.

Low Beta

I like safe stocks, so I always look at a stock’s beta. The beta will tell me how likely the stock price will swing with a market correction, or the overall stock market drops/raises. If the Beta is 1, the stock will rise and lower pretty equally with the overall market. If the Beta is over 1, it’ll swing more rapidly in either direction. The lower the Beta under 1, the less likely the stock will be as affected by the overall market. The beta for Iron Mountain is 0.54, meaning it’s relatively safe during large market swings. This is because most of Iron Mountain contracts are locked in for long periods of time, and short-term swings won’t affect them as much. I love that!

Dividend Rate – 7.01%

Yes, that’s right. It’s a high dividend, even for a REIT. I would be concerned if they didn’t have so many facilities around the world locked in long term contracts. A quarterly dividend of 7.01% is pretty great!

Diversified Revenue

For all of their storage capabilities for both physical and digital storage, no one customer makes up more than 1% of their revenue. That means even if one customer for some reason pulls out, it isn’t a big hit on their overall revenue.

Experts Also Consider IRM a Buy

Before I make a purchase, even after all of my data and research, I always do a double check to see what the “professionals” are doing with this stock. If they suggest “buy” then I know they are aligned with my research. If they say “sell” then I dig a little deeper to see what they are looking at, that I may have missed. Just because they say “sell” doesn’t mean I won’t buy, I just want to make sure I know everything before investing. In the case of Iron Mountain, the “experts” say “buy” via Yahoo Finance.

Iron Mountain isn’t all Sunshine & Rainbows

The biggest thing against Iron Mountain is their debt. Similar to most REITs, they have a considerable amount of debt that has helped them grow. They pay for this debt with a portion of the revenue made through their storage leasing in these facilities both physical and digital storage. At the end of 2017, their debt was $7.1 billion, which is a lot. However it’s still under the $10.9 billion in total assets. Plus most REITs have a sizeable chunk of debt. So this is something I’ll continue to monitor.

Conclusion

In the end, I ended up purchasing 2 shares of IRM at $32.73 per share. Why so little? Mainly because I’m broke, but try to buy stock whenever I can. I’ll continue to buy more of IRM as cash becomes available because so far, I’m a fan of the stock.

Do you own any IRM?

I Started Investing 3 Years Ago, Best Decision I Ever Made

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In the beginning of 2015 I paid off my credit card debt for the first time and started to learn about investing.

It was terrifying, but so totally worth it!

How I Perceived Investing As A Kid

Up until 3 years ago (I was 28), I knew NOTHING about investing. To me, investing was some insane, chaotic spree that made rich people rich and the middle class poor. I didn’t know how it worked, but I knew tons of people who lost money during the recession.

If you’ve ever watched any movie that talks about Wall Street or Investing, it’ll have your brain swimming in confusion trying to understand it. Were they just trying to make it look hard and impressive? (Yes).

I was terrified of investing, I just shut down anytime someone talked about investing and assumed they were a financial genius if they owned stock. Someone who had enough money to pay their bills, live their life and put something extra away investing for retirement was a financial god to me.

I Started to Learn About Money On My Own

Like I said before, at the beginning of 2015 (3 years ago) I paid off my credit card debt after paying countless $70 monthly payments. So once I paid it off, I wanted to use that $70 for something else, something reasonable.

I will admit my company did have a financial planner come into our office and talk about our 401(k) plan. While the company plan was pretty awful, the financial planner did a great job at terrifying me to death.

I will always remember their words “Running out of money in retirement is worse than death”

Well f*&k, that was more terrifying than Halloween. So I started to learn more about money and how it worked.

I started reading finance books like “Total Money Make Over” by Dave Ramsey. I consumed it in a day.

I started listening to finance podcasts. Not the hardcore stock analysis ones, but the more Investing for Dummies type of podcasts like “Listen, Money, Matters”. I LOVED that podcasts and in my mind, being surrounded by those announcers talking about money and finance as a regular thing, I began thinking of money in a different way.

After reading books and listening podcasts. I started to view money not as static thing to sit in my bank account, but more as income streams.

Understanding how much money I had in my bank account mattered less than how much I had coming in each month. That’s why investing became a fascination because it’s one of the most common income streams for people.

I Tried Investing $100 To See What Happens

On the podcast “Listen, Money, Matters” they raved about the investing app “Betterment” (Adam uses Betterment and did a review). They brought the Betterment team on the podcast and explained it and how it’s meant for people who know nothing about investing but want to start. That was me!

I remember how nervous I was signing up. I had to put in my info and social security number. I was convinced that I would immediately lose all my money straight away and because they knew my social security number, the IRS would start to hunt me down.

This was a legit fear I had.

Since I had so much anxiety, I only invested $100 to see what happened. I invested in a “moderate risk” portfolio which they automatically invested for me. All I did was put in $100 and waited to see what happens.

They say not to check it daily, but I did. Oh my goodness, for the first week I checked it hourly. I wanted to see EXACTLY how the stock market worked. After a week I limited myself to daily. So for 5 months, I checked my Betterment account every day, scruitinizing everything that happened.

However, I found that my money fluctuated. One day it went down to $99 then up to $102 and slowly kept rising. This helped me understand how the market moved (at least during those 5 months), how it worked and it slowly became less mysterious.

In fact, I started to notice little things like every once in a while, I would receive extra lumps of change in my account. Just a few pennies, but they were dividends. I received money just from owning certain stocks. I couldn’t tell which stocks with Betterment because it doesn’t show that amount of micro detail, but it was a great feeling.

Then I started to invest more and look at other stockbrokers (companies which you need to invest) like the Robinhood App (I still use Robinhood, here’s my full review on how it works). With Robinhood I could start to pick my individual stocks and it was amazing! I chose stocks that were on the safe side such as Apple, Realty Income and Johnson & Johnson that were well known and established. I knew if these companies tanked, there was something seriously wrong with our economy, so I felt comfortable.

I Wasn’t Addicted, But I Was Obsessed

After I learned how the stock market worked, I felt comfortable but wanted to see more gains than the couple of cents I had been earning. So I could have gone in two different directions. I could have started to invest in risky stocks for bigger gains (don’t recommend) or find new ways to earn money so I could buy more stocks. I did the latter.

Now I write articles online for money, use interest checking accounts, sell stock photos, sell things on Craigslist, use a cashback credit card and more to earn extra money each month and invest it!

Today, It Absolutely Was Worth It.

I’m not advocating for a certain investing approach, but I do want you to see money as income streams rather than a lump sum. It absolutely changed my life.

Before I was happy with $2,500 in my bank account. It was more than any of my friends had. I now keep $4,000 in both my checking and savings account as an Emergency Fund and invest the extra money each month in my investment portfolio.

Knowing I have the extra money and extra streams of income each month gives me SO MUCH more confidence to know I’ll be OK if an emergency comes up or I want to go on a vacation. That piece of mind is one of the greatest feelings ever.

Disney’s New Streaming Service Will Soon Destroy the Competition

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Disney’s New Streaming Service Will Soon Destroy the Competition

We talk about the rise of Netflix, Amazon’s streaming service, Hulu and even YouTube but I don’t think we’ve discussed enough of the impact Disney’s new streaming service is going to have.

Yes, Disney is Developing its Own Streaming Service

If you didn’t know, Disney is developing its own streaming service that’s looking to be priced substantially below Netflix at its launch. They have been leaking bits and pieces about their new streaming service here and there so we only know a little, but I don’t think people realize how big of news this is.

Cable TV is Dying, Streaming is the New Thing

In 2015, Netflix and Hulu grew 29% to a $5.1 billion market cap while cable and satellite tv only grew by 3%. It’s safe to say that streaming is taking over. Netflix alone has 109.3 million subscribers and anticipates another 6.3 million subscriptions this quarter. Those 109.3 million people are paying $10.99/month. That’s $1,202,300,000 per month. Not bad.

With Streaming, Content is King

Netflix realized a while ago, that anyone can get copy rights to movies and tv shows to be a streaming service, but what makes you unique is the original content you produce. That’s content you exclusively control. Think “House of Cards” you can’t get that anywhere except Netflix. Those original shows draw crowds of people to Netflix and they stay for the wide range of shows to watch. So much so that most people don’t need cable anymore other than sports, which have started streaming as well.

If you’re curious to know how serious original content is Netflix. Netflix plans to spend $8 billion on original content in 2018.

No One Has More Content Than Disney

Nearly every childhood movie (Lion King, Aladdin, 101 Dalmatians, etc.) is owned by Disney. Now add onto those the Pixar movies (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars), Marvel Studios (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Avengers, etc.) as well as Lucas Films (Star Wars). These are just a taste of the original content has, and can start streaming on their own network when ready. They own the exclusive rights to these films that can be leveraged in their new streaming service.

These are huge name franchises here! The Marvel Films alone have averaged $840 million at the global box office per movie.

Then you also need to consider all the Disney channel content and shows that it’s created for tv, soon going to be available in one location. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Disney Streaming service being the one streaming service owned by every mom in America.

Now start to consider what if Disney started to produce new content, including Star Wars, Marvel and/or movies exclusively for their new streaming service. That will be a huge draw to the service!

As much as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video and YouTube can crank out content. Disney has a winning formula it’s used for years to amass loads of quality content and proven itself over and over. It WILL win the original content game. If Disney can continue to dominate the original content game, they will win the streaming game.

When Does Disney’s Streaming Service Start?

The only thing we know is that Disney plans to debut their streaming service in 2019. Coincidently, this is when their current contract with Netflix is through. So when Netflix loses all their Disney content (think Marvel Series like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Daredevil, etc plus other Disney content), Disney will likely publish these shows on their own streaming service.

Keep in mind, they’ll start their ESPN streaming service in 2018 to start catching those cable-cutters who love sports. This will give them an opportunity to help hash out all the bugs for their larger digital content streaming service.

Will This Impact the Streaming Industry?

To give you an idea of the impact the news about a Disney streaming service. When Disney made the announcement, Netflix stock price dropped 4%.

Plus Disney has the resources not only from its box office hits, but it’s depths of resources to undercut all these other streaming services in price. So while Netfilx will continue to raise it’s monthly subscription price to pay for their original content, Disney win the war on prices and simply choke Netflix out. We’ll likely see Amazon Video and Disney as the lasting champions in the streaming game.

Conclusion

I am going to try to pick up a few more shares of Disney while the price is low before 2019. It’s not the greatest dividend for my dividend strategy at a 1.51% dividend, but it’s a great company with a great plan to be the #1 player in streaming services.

If you liked this article, I’d love if you shared it! =)

AndrewWallet Squirrel Found and Finance Ninja

Income Report – October, 2017

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Wahoo, I get both Halloween this week as well as writing my October Income Report. This income report shows a full transparency of everything I made this month from all the side-hustles on Wallet Squirrel. Everything we make, we invest to show that you can create an entire retirement portfolio from just extra ways to earn money.

What We Accomplished in October

Andrew wrote some sweet articles

  • The Perfect Blog Post Image Size to help you share your blog post on social media. We never had a consistent image size for Wallet Squirrel posts, so this article helped create some consistency for a future post. If you see our homepage or social media posts, you’ll see it turned out well.
  • After hearing about a new stock on Motley Fool, I did some research and checked out Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) to see what they did and analyze their stock for future consideration in my portfolio.
  • Does anyone else get anxious about tipping and judging people based on how well they serve you? I wrote “I Hate Tipping, It Ruins my Budget and Anxiety” because I totally do. I now pay wait staff 20% regardless of the service so I don’t feel like a dick for under-tipping or over tip and break my wallet.

Adam also wrote some great articles

  • He checked out our favorite income bloggers on the web and created the September Income Report Round Up of how much our favorite bloggers made in the month of September
  • Adam frustrated with bad spending habits wrote: “9 Bad Spending Habits that are Killing Your Budget“. I’ll admit I used to be victim to some of these, what about you?
  • Since Amazon is looking for new cities around the US to host their new Amazon headquarters, Adam took a look at Denver as a possibility and how that would affect our cities economy and housing market.

Any favorites?

Income Report – October 2017

We had such a great month last month, so I knew we couldn’t keep it up, but I was still surprised we did so well. We brought in $171.10 in October which is WAY better than our old average of $60 and it wasn’t from any one source. It was a combination of all our different revenue streams that continue to grow. That’s REALLY exciting.

These are all great income sources, but nothing really sticks out as the major money maker. Since all of these are balancing out, maybe it’s time for me to start looking into creating another affiliate marketing website and track its progress on Wallet Squirrel. What do you think?

Here are the sources of income for October.

$50 – Paid link, someone paid me to add a link to an old article. It worked well.
$45.00 – Bluehost Affiliate Income
$21.30 – Robinhood App Affiliate Program
$16.90 – Seeking Alpha Articles
$11.48 – Cashback Credit Card
$10.00 – Dividends
$4.45 – Stock Photography
$4.27 – Wallet Squirrel AdSense
$3.75 – Lending Club
$1.91 – Wallet Squirrel Affiliate Marketing
$1.39 – Interest Checking/Savings Account

Where does that $171.10 go?

A majority of that $171.10 goes toward building a $10 million dollar retirement portfolio of dividend stocks. A few of those dollars are spent to pay for our website services and website goals. Since most of it goes to my retirement portfolio though, I used it to buy more stocks, specifically more positions in Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Realty Income (O).  Wahoo!

Let’s Talk Goals

Did I meet last month’s (October) goals? – Kinda

I was supposed to set up a Pinterest Process, but I think I just created a process on CoSchedule for my Pinterest Boards along with joined a few other boards on Pinterest and Facebook Pinterest Groups. Yes that’s apparently a thing and they are SUPER friendly, try it!

November Goals

It’s a secret, I will share later this month!!!! =)

Stock Watch List- Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP)

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This week after listening to the Motley Fool Money podcast, I researched Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (stock ticker: BIP) for my Stock Watch List. The Motley Fool commentators said BIP was on their watch list, so I looked into it for my own portfolio.

Stock Watch List

My Stock Watch List is a collection of companies I’m looking into invest in. I’m either currently too broke to currently buy them or I’m looking into them to buy them soon. Either way, these analyses help me decided to buy or not with the extra money I earn.

What is Brookfield Infrastructure Partners?

Basically, they own one of the largest infrastructure networks globally. This is the infrastructure for the transportation and storage of energy, water, freight, passengers, and data. They earn money by way of fees for people to use their infrastructure, they have a 15.1 billion market cap on infrastructure as an MLP (Master Limited Partnership). So no matter if electricity or oil is costly or cheap, it still costs money to transport and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners makes that money.

What I like about Brookfield Infrastructure Partners

  • They have a 4.3% dividend. Plus many of these utilities are regulated by countries/regions and those support long-term contracts which produce stable cash flow. In addition, they have $1.1 billion of planned investments coming down the pipeline in the following years to generate high growth.

    5-year Stock Price for BIP – Graph from Yahoo Finance

  • They are geographically diverse spanning over 5 continents and income diverse earning money from 35 different businesses across four different infrastructure groups including Utilities (electric and natural gas transportation), Transportation (railways, ports and toll roads), Energy (energy transmission, distribution, and storage) and Communication Infrastructure (communication towers).

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners – Investor Fact Sheet, August 2017

  • I love this business model where businesses will pay to use this infrastructure regardless if the stock market is up or down. Businesses need to get their goods/services from A to B and Brookfield owns those connecting lines. Many MLPs follow this business structure but Brookfield seems to be doing a great job and consistently growing to produce additional income. Plus this reoccurring revenue makes Brookfield traditionally a reasonably safe and reliable stock.

What I don’t like about Brookfield Infrastructure Partners

  • My biggest complaint with Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, personally, is that it’s an MLP and that makes taxes a bit more complicated. I honestly can’t speak to the tax issues since I’m not familiar with them myself, I just know they are more complicated.

Conclusion

I have several MLPs that I’d love to invest in like Kinder Morgan, but Brookfield Infrastructure Partners is my favorite so far. However, I likely won’t invest in it until I understand a bit more about the tax implications. So, for now, I’ll continue to watch it and if it gets any more attractive, I’ll consult a tax professional on how it would affect my taxes and not cause a headache.

Do you own any MLPs?

Latest Stock Purchase & Analysis – Cisco (CSCO)

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After seeing multiple investor friends pick up Cisco (CSCO) lately, I had to check it out. So these are the insights I looked into and ultimately factored into my first purchase of Cisco.

Why am I sharing my latest stock purchase?

Each month I try different ways to make extra money and share how much I make in my Income Reports. Every month I use this money to buy more stocks and other investments to build a $10,000,000 investment portfolio. It may take a while, but it’s done with one investment at a time.

This month I bought 9 shares of Cisco.

What is Cisco

Cisco (Stock Ticker CSCO) is a hardware and software company that designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol (IP) based networking and other products related to the communications and information technology industry worldwide.

I basically just like to think of Cisco as the infrastructure of the internet. All of the highways that connect websites and databases and funny cat videos of the internet are primary run on Cisco products.

If you want to know what a company does look at their revenue. In 2016 this is where their money came from:

  • Switching (30% of revenue) – Switches connect computers, printers, and servers within a building or campus. These allow everything to talk to each other. Switches create a network of devices.
  • Routers (15% of revenue) – If a switch is a network, routers connect networks. A router links computers to the internet.
  • Collaboration (9% of revenue) – This is a general term to describe their immersive video conference software, IP telephones, software to connect the devices to talk to each other. This includes Jabber, Cisco WebEx and Spark. For example, my office uses Cisco WebEx to coordinate all of our in/out video conferences.
  • Data Centers (7% of revenue) – Data Centers allow large scale flexible computing. This can be from storage to computing power.
  • Wireless Infrastructure (5% of revenue) – These are the base stations and infrastructure for Wi-Fi. Think of hotels, casinos, grocery stores, airports and any building that provides Wi-Fi. Most of these devices are Cisco related.
  • Security (4% of revenue) – These are the firewalls that block out Russian hackers and malware from accessing their infrastructure and their client’s servers/computers/Internet of Things.
  • Services (24% of revenue) – These are the people that run these services, train clients how to use them, manage networks, operate systems and support their wide variety of products.

We can say that the other 6% is “Other”, but you get the idea they do a lot with the internet. Combined all these products and services generated $49,247,000,000 in total revenue in 2016.

Why did I buy Cisco?

When looking over Cisco, they really hit some of the key factors that I look for when buying a stock.

1. Dividend (good)- They have a 3.69% dividend that they’ve had since 2012. That 3.69% is really nice considering this is a tech stock that traditionally has lower dividends.

2. Historical Performance (good)- They say that past performance doesn’t indicate future performance, but I like the graph of the stock price over the last 5 years. It has its dips, but overall it has a progressive climb. That is a plus for me.

5 Year Graph of Cisco’s Stock Price

3. Strong History (good) – I’m not a big fan of crazy risk, so I like to invest in proven companies. Cisco has a market cap of 161.702 Billion, they’ve been around since 1984 building the internet. I want to make sure that the company has been tested long enough and a strong times interest earned ratio that they know how to manage market downturns.

4. Reoccurring Revenue (getting there) – Cisco has traditionally been a hardware company, but they are transitioning into more of a software company and one that wants to focus on a subscription model. Their CEO, Chuck Robbins even mentioned in their 2016 Annual Report that they are “working to move more of our revenue to a software-based and subscription-based model”. I am a huge fan of reoccuring revenue, so when I see a company of this size transitioning to that business model, I can get on board.

Since I liked what I saw, I bought 9 shares at $31.89 per share for a total of $279.09.

Why did I buy now?

In honesty, I probably rushed into buying Cisco because I wanted to buy their stock before their earnings call on August 16th (yesterday). I thought the stock would increase after the earning call, but it dropped a bit after coming short on revenue. F*&K.

The stock price has dipped about a dollar since then. I failed.

I will continue to hold Cisco because I think they are in the right direction, but it just sucks that I bought it right before the dip. This will probably teach me not to rush into anything when looking at future stocks.

Conclusion

I like Cisco and look forward to following them, but will be hesitant into rushing into any future buying just because a earnings report is coming up and everyone else is bullish on a stock.

If Cisco continues to invest more into their subscription-based business model, I’ll likely add more to this position.

Get a free share of stock from Robinhood for New Signups & Referrals

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Robinhood App now offers a free share of stock for New Signups & Referrals

Robinhood App the free stock trading app that I’ve used for my portfolio and reviewed last year has a new promotion making some unique headlines. Now for every person you get to sign up with the broker Robinhood, both you and the person who signed up, get a free share of stock.

What Stocks Do You Get?

It appears to be a randomized assortment of stocks from the messages posted on social media. Robinhood states that the stocks range in value from $3 – $150, so you could technically get a share of Apple (AAPL) randomly if you sign up now, or you help a friend signup.

What Are Your Chances of Getting $175?

Depends, how lucky are you? Like REALLY lucky. You have a 1% chance of getting a stock valued at $175. Reading the fine print on their website you’re most likely to get a $2.50-$10 stock.

Here are your chances for a free share of stock when you sign up.

  • 98% of getting a stock valued at $0.50-$10
  • 1% of getting a stock valued at $10-$50
  • 1% of getting a stock valued at $50-$200

Thanks to Social Media, we have an idea what it looks like.

So get all your friends to sign up?

For everyone you get to sign up, both you and your new sign up friend get a free share of stock. All you need to do is use the referral code that Robinhood gives you.

If you’ve been with Robinhood for a while, this is the same referral code you’ve always had. Now there are just perks for you to refer a friend to Robinhood.

Here click on my referral code to see what it looks like. You don’t have to sign up.

Robinhood Referral

However, if you’re someone like Kim Kardashian who can get ONE MILLION people to sign up, you won’t get $1M free shares of stock. You’ll be capped at $500 worth of stocks no matter how many people you refer. Lame I know.

Is this promotion available to anyone with Robinhood?

It started off a few months ago. I was NOT one of the early testers for this. However earlier this week I saw on my Robinhood App that I’m NOW able to this. I’m not sure what changed. If everyone is able to do this now or what (I’m not special). They must have just opened this up to a much wider pool of users.

If you’re curious if this works with your Robinhood referral code. Go to your app and if you can’t find “Free Stocks” in your sub menu. You’re not in the program yet. Maybe send the Robinhood App people a tweet (@RobinhoodApp) and say “Hey, can I join this super cool referral club like @WalletSquirrel”. I’ll retweet for you.

 

Should you feel comfortable referring friends to Robinhood?

If it helps, I refer all my friends to start investing with Robinhood. It’s a great broker to start off with (one I personally use) because there are $0 fees to start buying stocks and all of their securities customers are insured up to $500,000 by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).

Also keep in mind that Robinhood recently raised $110M in Series C round of fundraising, which they’re valued at $1.3 Billion. Some of the investors working with Robinhood are Google Ventures.

These guys are growing and they have the support of some major players in the game.

This promotion makes Robinhood worth considering

If you’ve ever considered the stock market, you should do some research on Robinhood because not only are you going to get free trades while using their app, you’ll start off with a free share of stock that could be Apple.

This isn’t on our list of ways to make money, but maybe it should be.