- The Finance Gourmet

What Is O Stock and Why Are People Obsessed With It?

January 14, 2025 by Finance Gourmet

dragon running a reit like the o stock company

O Boy – Realty Income Corp If you have spent more than a few minutes on Twitter, Facebook, or Threads reading posts from investors, chances are you have come across O the stock symbol for Realty Income Corp. So why are people so captivated by O, and why do they insist that O is a great investment for virtually anyone? Let’s start with what is O stock and what company is this anyway? What Is Realty Income Corp? Realty Income is the largest triple-net REIT in the country. A REIT is a company constructed as a trust of real estate holdings. It has over 15,000 properties, mostly of the retail establishment type. But that’s not why everyone is crazy about O. As is so often the case, the popularity comes courtesy of a very deliberate marketing strategy. O bills itself as “The Monthly Dividend Company.” Therein lies its distinctive trait that lets it stand out in a crowded marketplace. While most companies pay dividends quarterly, or even annually, O pays dividends every month. There is nothing magic about monthly dividend payouts. Instead of holding onto the cash and making a larger payment each quarter, the company makes a smaller payout …

Buy and Hold Forever Is Bad

January 11, 2025January 4, 2025 by Finance Gourmet

When it comes to investing in the stock market, newbies are often cautioned against trading too often. This is good advice. Many investors end up badly trailing the returns on any market index you choose simply because they are terrible at timing. Jumping out of stocks when they are low, buying into them when they are high. Chasing winners, selling out “before” a crash, and so on eat into investor returns, but is buying and holding a good investment strategy? Warren Buffett Buy and Hold Strategy Once upon a time, Warren Buffett was quoted as saying that his favorite holding period for investments was “forever.” Of course, that was taken a bit out of context and leaves out the fact that in many ways, when Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway want to hold an investment forever, they buy the whole company. Buffet’s company bought Geico, Burlington Northern, Dairy Queen and numerous others including my personal favorite Acme Brick Company. What Warren Buffett actually advises to anyone who asks how to invest is to buy an S&P 500 index fund and leave your money there forever. This is actually very good advice. Few investors beat the S&P500 on a consistent basis. …

Review Is Grifin App Legit?

August 28, 2024June 26, 2024 by Finance Gourmet

New Grifin news: I just recently got a notice that Grifin will be implementing a $5 monthly fee. I’m going to redo the review below in light of this fee and the new features that Grifin has positioned in an attempt to make it worth it. My first reaction is that $60 per year is too much. — Please read the rest of this review knowing that it was how I felt about everything before the fee was implemented, when there was no user cost. New Grifin review update: It looks like the folks at Grifin are back with new updates. The latest version of Grifin offers app users the ability to change how much to invest for each purchase. This is a big change from Grifin’s core system where every purchase using a Grifin linked credit card triggered a $1 investment in the stock of that same company. This latest version of Grifin lets you select whether to invest the traditional $1 for each purchase, or change it to $2 per purchase, or even $3 per transaction. The other new update is the ability to transfer cash directly into the Grifin app to invest as you please from inside …

Dividend Stock Review – McDonald’s

October 6, 2023 by Finance Gourmet

After nearly a half century on this planet, McDonald’s has become one of my favorite dividend stocks. You see, every 10 or so years, McDonald’s stops growing, or starts having lower sales, or whatever. There is panic all around, the CEO gets replaced, and then McDonald’s goes back to doing what it has done for longer than I’ve been around, making burgers and making money. McDonald’s Dividend Increase No one is currently panicking about their same store sales, or that Americans are eating healthier. However, McDonald’s has a company to run and can’t just wait around for some analyst somewhere to spook investors. So, along with McDonald’s latest quarterly earnings, the company announced a dividend increase. Unless you are trying to live on your McDonald’s dividends, the exact amount isn’t really that important. In the interest of having all the information, the increase is 15 cents. If you’re still growing your investments, or just looking to get some sweet returns from McDonald’s while you are holding onto their stock, what we really care about is where that puts MCD’s dividend yield. This morning at around $248 and change, McDonald’s’ (I’m gonna have to check on that punctuation) annual dividend yield …

Is Grifin a Good Way to Start Investing

August 28, 2024September 14, 2023 by Finance Gourmet

Important Grifin Update It was always probably a little too good to be true. An app that invests a dollar every time you make a purchase with no fees or user face costs. Everything costs money, especially running an app that accesses credit cards, makes transfers from banks, and then buys and tracks investments in partial shares of stocks. I have no idea what the plan was in the beginning, but I can only imagine it was something like, “We’ll figure out how to monetize it when we’re huge,” or maybe, “We’ll get big enough someone will buy us for a big exit before we run out of venture capital money.” Neither of those worked out, so instead, Grifin will start charging $5 per month. They did their best to sugarcoat it. There are some new features, but none that can justify $60 a year in fees for accounts that have just a few thousand in them. After all, even stock where you shop doesn’t necessarily add up that quickly, as I pointed out here and in my comprehensive Grifin review. From my first investment back in fall of 2021 to now, I’ve built up a nice littel $1,100 or …

It Takes Money To Make Money Webull Example

November 11, 2024June 20, 2023 by Finance Gourmet

I’m writing up a comprehensive Webull review as part of my ongoing series of brokerage app reviews where I do comparisons like Webull vs Robinhood, look at is Webull legit, and my personal finance apps reviews. My hands-on Webull review includes actually depositing money and using the Webull app to buy and sell stocks, cryptos, and options. I feel like a real review of Webull or any other finance app requires putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak. Of course, for the purpose of writing a personal finance review of Webull, I’m not going to drop thousands of dollars into a new app I have no experience with just to try it out. My freelance financial writing business does pretty well, but maybe not THAT well. This article is not a recommendation to buy or sell any securities mentioned below. Some of the links below are referral links and may result in compensation to myself or Finance Gourmet. Invest In Webull Make Money Percentages Alright some context before we take a look at the screenshot. First, Webull gave me a single share of stock free in Genworth Financial for signing up for an account. In other words, …

Good Dividend Investment in Johnson & Johnson

June 5, 2023 by Finance Gourmet

It’s no secret I am a big fan of dividend investing. What better way to invest than to let the company you are investing in pay you to hold onto their stock until it makes a sweet, profitable trade. What is a good dividend stock to invest in is a multilayered question, but you can’t go wrong starting with a look at the Dividend Kings. Johnson & Johnson Good Time to Invest? Chances are pretty good that you have heard of Johnson & Johnson. In addition to being a household name for all of the reasons you know, it is also a household name for dozens of products you use every day that just don’t have the J&J name on them. Johnson & Johnson stock trades under the JNJ ticker symbol. It is part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the S&P 500 index. As a dividend king, J&J has raised its dividend every year for 50 consecutive years. When a company can do that, it means that they are busy running a profitable company and not chasing executive bonus tiers. As you can imagine, J&J is not a growth stock, but that is okay. Johnson and Johnson will …

Dividend Kings 2023

January 12, 2023 by Finance Gourmet

A somewhat overused concept, in my humble opinion, albeit a strong investing strategy is the Dividend Kings as derived from Dividend Aristocrats. The list of Dividend Aristocrats is made of S&P 500 companies that have increased their dividends for 25 consecutive years. The list of Dividend Kings is composed of stocks that have increased their dividends for 50 consecutive years. Whether or not Dividend Kings must be part of the S&P500 is up for debate. What is the point of Dividend Kings? Well, you see sonny, back in my day… No seriously, I just celebrated my 50th birthday. I was making investments when discount brokers were a new thing. Imagine the concept of not charging a huge commission on each trade. The horror! When I first started investing, there was no such thing as investing online, there was no such thing as the internet bubble, and there was certainly no such thing as buying fractional shares. What is my point? Well, back when those first three things were ramping up, there were people all over the internet telling you that you were a fool to listen to experts and that you should listen to them. As proof, they had portfolios …

Is Disney Stock a Buy? A Quick Analysis

December 9, 2022 by Finance Gourmet

I don’t do a ton of individual stock analysis on Finance Gourmet because everyone’s investing goals are so different that when I’m saying Disney is a buy, I mean Disney is a buy for me based upon my investment objectives and existing portfolio. That might be totally different than other’s investing strategy. Is Disney a Good Company? Disney is a large, diversified company that operates in various industries, including media and entertainment, parks and resorts, and consumer products. However, Disney does not pay dividends, and in a world full of great companies, why would I pick one that doesn’t pay dividends? Like many other companies, Disney may choose not to pay dividends to reinvest its profits in the business or for other strategic reasons. Dividend policy is ultimately determined by a company’s board of directors and can change over time depending on the company’s financial performance and other factors. Is Disney the Biggest Media Company? Disney is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. The company has a diverse portfolio of businesses, including its iconic theme parks, its film and television studios, and its consumer products division. Disney also owns several cable and television networks, including …

Stock Market Rallies

November 10, 2022 by Finance Gourmet

More proof that elections and politics don’t matter as much to the markets as politicians and pundits would have you believe, the Dow Jones rallied to its best one-day gain since 2000. The Dow ended up over 1,200 points, or 3.7% in one day not because anyone did or did not win this week’s elections, but because the latest inflation numbers came in at 7.7% year over year. The latest inflation figures suggest that price increases may be slowing, and the Fed’s work may be done. Job Cuts For some additional inflation news, remember that various tech companies have announced tens of thousands of layoffs. That takes some of the pep out of the job market as well. Higher interest rates, harder to find jobs, and less leverage getting raises at existing jobs all spell a dramatic decrease in consumer spending heading into the all-important holiday season. Stock Market 2022 and 2023 Where does that leave the markets for the rest of 2022 and into 2023? Barring in new bad news or terrible numbers, Wall Street loves a good Santa Claus Rally. However, gains may be tempered by end of year selling as investors look to lock in some capital …