What Are We Missing?

[Dividend Watcher]

(11-10-2014, 01:24 PM)rapidacid Wrote: An absurd amount of information is freely available across a plethora of sites today. We have instant access to more data than at any time in history.
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For our brand of investing, Dividend Growth Investing, I can't help but feel even with all the information available to us, there's still some resources missing that would be extremely valuable.

Maybe it's old age but I'm coming to the conclusion that it's just the opposite.

Once you've found some interesting businesses, gone through the vetting process (read: due diligence) and selected some to either put in your portfolio now or in the future at a better value, then constantly watching them for any tidbit of news or statistic may be more detrimental to your financial health. My spreadsheets include a prospective portfolio along with a sheet of the current holdings. I'll add to what I have or open a new position when the price seems fair but, other than that, I don't go chasing for some statistic that will lead me to beat the market to the next "hot" thing. BTDT in my younger years and didn't get anywhere.

I was one of those that got disgusted with JNJ's management a few years back and bailed out. Fortunately, I landed in ABT, now ABBV and ABT, which has been berry, berry good to me. In the meantime, JNJ got rid of the lousy management suite and has done quite well for its owners since.

I'm now to the point where I update my spreadsheet when there's a dividend reinvested (or several). I look for big changes in price and then do a little search to see if there's a reason, or I go through the numbers again when I decide to make a meaningful change which is getting less and less often. Other than that, I just come here to join in the banter, read a few articles on SA and then go back to other things in life.

DGI is not some 24/7 investment technique that requires a multitude of inputs. Find good companies, buy them, add when cash is available, reinvest and then sit back and let time and compounding work its wonders. I've been doing it for 5 years now and every month I am beginning to see it incrementally having an increasing effect. All that for sitting on my keister.