Well the markets are up huge today thanks to the fact that it APPEARS that the European Union block countries are going to work together to stem the financial crisis that has gripped the continent for the past year...I say it appears because men and women, like different governmental leaders are fickle and things can change rather quickly. The leaders at the European summit decided that instead of just issuing money to the governments (Italy, Greece, Spain, etc), they would lend money (pretty much give it to them for free) to the actual banking industry - banks across Europe would and will receive low interest loans for the European Union. This way, so they think, the banks can go ahead and put the money into the hands of the consumer and hopefully see that money work its way back into the government in the form of consumer spending and debt reduction; now that's a backwards way of trying to curtail government debt because they are hoping the "consumer" will spend money and increase economic growth which will subsequently outpace that of government spending. Here's the problem: it's going to be a long tough road for Europe to try to grow their way out of debt when the real problem is that, like many of us, are spending more money than they are making. Nonetheless an up market day is an up market day and I love the fact that stocks are are reacting so positively today (and on a Friday!). The day is still young but hopefully we will see a strong market into the close. I imagine that the afternoon trading will be light as a lot of people get ready for the holiday weekend.
I've been pretty frustrated and stressed of late due to the constant volatility (hence rollercoaster) and confluence of economic reports that point to an expanding economy one day and the next day reports about how our economy is struggling...I've been scratching my head a lot to say the least. With that in mind, I've been talking to my boss (my Father) about moving more to a more dividend focused investment portfolio that hopefully doesn't have as many up and downs as the overall market has shown us. The stocks I've been focusing on are the high dividend paying ones such as Verizon, Duke Energy, Pfizer, KKR Financial, Altria, etc...
I'll be writing about some of those and explaining why I think they would represent a good way to invest in a cloudy and confusing market that we are currently in.
Is it 5 o'clock yet?
