The Dividend Investing Blog

First of all, I apologize for any outages users may have seen over this last week. As I posted previously, I had updated the site to Wordpress 2.5.1 and I had a few issues that day. I discovered today that I had another issue with the Thoroughbred Folio page and the Dividend Tool. This weekend I added Gravatar support to the comments. Pretty nice feature. You will also notice my Twitter widget in the sidebar. I have been using it for almost a week now and it is kind of addicting. With that out of the way, let’s talk Microsoft and Yahoo.

There have been reports all day that Microsoft has sending new love notes over to Yahoo, apologizing for the aggressive nature during their last encounter. Microsoft apparently wants to buy some search assets and then invest in Yahoo. Even though Yahoo has not been able to keep up with Google, they still have some very nice assets like Flickr, Yahoo Mail, and Rivals.com to name a few.

I have watched Microsoft fail in the Internet space over and over and over again. Microsoft just seems to destroy everything it acquires. What is worse is that Yahoo shareholders will probably end up in a worse position if this deal goes through. Many of them will probably wonder what could have been when Microsoft offered up $33 per share. As the Internet turns.

The Thoroughbred Folio has held steady and we have actually just crept under the 1% loss mark. It almost seems like we are poised for liftoff. In dividend news this week, Proctor and Gamble (PG) raised its dividend 19%, Abbot Labs (ABT) raised theirs about 9%, and Clorox (CLX) held steady. The only change in the front three companies is Synovus overtaking Family Dollar. Nucor and WM Wrigley are way out in front.

Weakness in our bank stocks continues to show up in the Folio. Fifth Third Bancorp and Regions have taken the last two spots. Gannett is trying to pull its way out of the bottom three as Bank of America is showing considerable weakness too.

Thoroughbred Performance (Week 22 of 52): $-29.72 (-0.99%) Dividends To Date: $34.52

Top 3 Stocks

1. Nucor Corp $29.50 (39.33%)
2. WM Wrigley $22.12 (29.49%)
3. Synovus $5.60 (16.54%)

Bottom 3 Stocks

1. Fifth Third Bancorp $-15.99 (-21.32%)
2. Regions Financial $-12.60 (-16.79%)
3. Gannett Co $-12.10 (-16.13%)

Stocks used in this post:

• (ABT: 54.91, +1.29%, Yield: 2.59%)
• (CLX: 58.08, -2.88%, Yield: 2.78%)
• (FITB: 13.13, +20.79%, Yield: 10.86%)
• (GCI: 13.21, +3.53%, Yield: 12.54%)
• (NUE: 34.30, -12.70%, Yield: 5.52%)
• (PG: 64.05, +1.20%, Yield: 2.37%)
• (RF: 11.49, +29.98%, Yield: 14.03%)
• (SNV: 9.94, +11.56%, Yield: 159.52%)
• (WWY: 0.00, N/A, Yield: N/A%)