Weekly Summary for Week Ending 17 February 2012

Written by Mark Bern

I tend to write the majority of my article on dominant companies with a strong history of rising dividends.  But I also write about companies with a growth objective as well.  In addition, I often recommend using the sale of options as tools to manage a portfolio, taking most of the emotion out of the decision-making process and enhancing the income stream at the same time.

This week I finished up an 8-part series of articles titled, “Building a Capital Preservation and Income Portfolio” with the final four pieces which focused primarily on selling call options to enhance the income stream from an existing portfolio.  Part 5 contains a simple, detailed tutorial on how to implement the strategy and can be accessed by this link.  Of course, the series makes more sense if you start at the beginning with Part 1.

Other articles focused primarily on companies in the industrial sector.  I covered Caterpillar which has room to grow, Illinois Tool Works, a rising dividend play, and Navistar International.

I also wrote an overview article about the Auto Industry for those who are interested in a story about recovery and how the competitive landscape is changing there. In a related article about Ford I provided my version of what I learned from an exclusive interview three us of at Seeking Alpha had recently with CEO Alan Mulally.

Finally, I want to make readers aware of my ongoing series entitled, “My Long-Term, Enhanced Investing-for-Income Strategy.”  It begins with a detailed explanation of using puts and calls for managing your portfolio.  Think of selling a put as a means of placing a limit order and getting paid for placing it.  I think that you will agree that creating a return of 8% – 10% on your cash while you wait patiently to buy at bargain prices is preferable to placing orders below the market in hopes of getting a bargain and earning nothing on your cash while you wait.  That is just one aspect of the strategy and you can find the original article at this link.  If you are wondering how the strategy is working so far, you can find the results in the latest summary article, also written last week.

In the coming week I plan to write more about industrial companies and then turn my focus more toward companies in the consumer products industry.  I hope you’ll join me in my never ending search for rising dividends from quality companies.