No stock is immune to market fluctuations and that includes dividend aristocrats. Dividends account for a fair chunk of the stock market return to investors, but just how can we choose dividend stocks that are considered safe? I’m going to run you through some factors you should consider when buying stocks.
It’s no secret that stock prices fall as much as they rise, but if you didn’t know that already … I don’t really know what to tell you. The markets have endured numerous recessions and there are still fears abound that we’re destined for another shortly, but what does one do during a recession? Should I sell all my shares and try to time it just right? Nope. In the wise British words: Keep calm and carry on.
You don’t need much money to start investing and turn a profit. Companies have skyrocketed in value since the early 2000s. If you invested just £100 in Amazon in 2005 (when it was just $35 per share) and sold it today, you would have more than £5,000. What’s even more mind-blowing is if you invested £100 per month and then sold your shares today. Crazy, right? The best part is you can easily start to invest with just £100.
Are you regularly depositing money into a savings account? You may want to consider alternative methods to accumulating wealth in a pot, like investing. Interest rates are low right now with the Bank of England base rate at just 0.1%, making it difficult to spot savings accounts with mediocre interest rates, let alone anything substantial. Investing can provide an average of 5% if done sensibly.
Leasing a brand new vehicle seems like a pretty good deal. You pay a monthly fee (£350 in my case) for a vehicle no one but you will have driven. But although you get the included warranty and knowledge that everything should be working as intended, this isn’t the option I’ll continue using once my current lease comes to an end. In fact, I’m never going to lease a vehicle ever again.
Looking to invest in the stock markets and don’t know where to start? No longer do you need a computer to trade shares in companies. All that’s required is your smartphone and an app. I’ve rounded up some of the best brokerage apps on the UK app market.
Coming up in this dividend tracking spreadsheet update release, we’ll be updating the transactions tab to handle holdings in both GBP and GBX. For now, the spreadsheet isn’t smart enough to tell the difference between UK stocks in £ and p, but all that’s about to change.
YouTube is an incredible hub of information. There are countless channels that cover a whole host of topics, including investing. I follow a handful of intelligent folk on the platform and decided to give them al la shout out right here, just in case you’re looking for some visual motivation. These people are incredible and well worth watching.
Trading 212 offers three types of accounts: CFD, Invest, and ISA. The latter two are what I use and recommend everyone else rely on, whilst CFD is where you can lose (or gain) large sums of money. But Invest and ISA are pretty similar, so which should you choose to use?
It’s time for another quick update to the spreadsheet tracker. I’ve added more charts, because everyone loves to see data visualised. The goal with this tracker and dividend investing is to improve your life. A great way of aiding this is to have you spend as less time as possible gazing at this spreadsheet.