The Dividend Daily

As expected, we saw a fairly uneventful shortened Christmas Eve trading session, as the indices gave up some more ground, continuing Friday’s down trend.

Some of today’s bigger upside movers included Nike (NKE) following Friday’s rally on earnings news, Yum! Brands (YUM) (dip buyers moving in following recent weakness), and Time Warner Cable (TWC). On the flipside, Chevron (CVX) and Microsoft (MSFT) finished lower on energy and tech-related concerns.

Good Investors Pace Themselves

I like to remind everyone that the essence of being a good investor over time requires learning from mistakes and not forgetting to analyze your results, good or bad. We get lots of e-mails from readers (especially late in the year) expressing their gratitude for keeping them informed and on the right track with their investment approach. Sometimes, a reader will tell us they would have wished they had listened to us when it came to trading mishaps they may have experienced as well. I talk about trading much more than a dividend expert normally does, because I was formerly a trader myself and I understand the psyche of how investors look at the markets — especially the hype that goes into covering the markets from today’s manic business media. It’s easy to get sucked into being more of a trader than a long term investor, despite one’s best intentions to avoid the day-to-day mania.

Fortunately I understand that part of the markets, and can relate topics that will almost always resonate with how many see today’s news affecting the market averages. When it comes to those who are retired, we may not cover as much of the personal finance-related stuff that some may want to hear, but we certainly don’t overlook the everyday issues plaguing today’s retirees in their quest for income opportunities. We are in a financial atmosphere where not taking risk at all is probably the biggest detriment for one’s nest egg. Does that mean we need to push on super-aggressive approaches to garner income ideas? Not in the least. But the continued bedlam is part of what we encounter on a daily basis, so we hope retirees can withstand the onslaught of market-moving events that are now more frequent than we have ever seen. I urge patience in your approach the markets, and realize that we will continue to keep our investment ideas as lean as we need to be if the situation beckons caution.

We are not here to promote Wall Street as it being a place of unimaginable riches, but rather to cut through the parts that make the most sense for building income and wealth over time.

Finally, I’d once again like to wish everyone a safe and healthy holiday season. We’ll be back on Wednesday as the market reverts back to its regular hours with 2012 winding down. Merry Christmas!

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks, as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here.