Good point Stephen. I’ve just checked and haven’t doubled up, but it easily could have happened! I’m thinking over time that a mix of stocks that offer growth and no dividend, along with dividend stocks could be a good model. I’d be interested if other people have this is a model, or is it better to go for one or the other?
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I have a mix, I’m probably at about 75% dividend stocks and the rest (hopefully) growth 
Can I ask your opinion on the Allergan acquisition and the expected 2023 humira patent expiry for Abbvie?
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I personally think it’s a great acquisition it just gives abbvie more diversity in my opinion. Also they had to do something with the whole humira patent running out in 4 years which currently makes up 61% of abbvies income. ( just a side note, this income won’t immediately stop in 4 years but it will slowly reduce year after year) And this acquisition changes the humira income dependency from 61% to 41%. Here is a great video explaining the whole acquisition the good points and bad.
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Thanks for this, watching the video now. He talks about the low p/e (7.?) for abbvie after the drop, but if the acquisition goes through, what is relevant would be p/e of the combined group?
I think it’s ideal if you’re part funding an acquisition with your own shares and using your own shares as currency, that you have a high P/E on your own shares. That way you’re giving away less of shareholders earnings. A question I have is that, does the fact abbvie share price fell mean that the acquisition instantly costs ~10% more as one of the ‘currencies’ used is abbvie shares?
I wonder if the ideal outcome could be acquisition doesn’t proceed but low entry point has presented for abbvie, especially as the low p/e accounts for humira revenue tapering off.
I’m reading a book called the outsiders where the author talks about the need to focus on per share value rather than enlarging the company in absolute terms through debt fuelled acquisitions and mergers but not much value created on per share basis in many cases. Some CEO’s are credited with pulling off acquisitions when company p/e was at all time high and the company being acquired was cheaply valued.
All that being said I barely have passing acquaintance with these two companies so have no idea on the strategic merits of the deal and synergies etc but I do think it’s important to have some idea of how to decide if a company is overpaying on an acquisition.
Search for the company here: https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/ and will show ex dividend and pay dates. Freetrade normally pay 2-3 days after.
where’s your next video? It’s been 1 month!
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Sorry for delay I’ll be updating this week 
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Curious to see your current portfolio for comparison after this week’s crash.
Are you doing much short selling?
Can’t get enough of the series louis 
it’s awesome. Really helps newbies too
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Dividend portfolio update please watch and let me know your thoughts
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Looks like we’ve all missed out on the huge 20% increase in Target which has been on my want list like forever 
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Hey Louis, your portfolio is looking great! Congratulations on being committed on Freetrade and for creating your videos. May I ask how you conduct your investment research and pick the different stocks? Additionally, what made you choose individual stock picking instead of going for a low-cost dividend ETF?
It looks like you have 8% in cash as dry powder for when the market tanks. What stocks are you looking to load up on?
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Curious to know if you still believe dividend investing is the right approach over growth investing?
I’m assuming you’re still relatively young so growth investing, or a mixture of growth/value investing, would usually be the norm. Dividend investment is more popular with the over 50s and retirees who are looking for income out of their portfolio.
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That’s the case if you want income now, but if you don’t need the income yet, reinvesting dividends is a very powerful way of growing your portfolio over a number of years due to the compounding effect. Often Dividend stocks will show some growth as well, roughly in line with the whole market
Stocks that pay very high dividends often do so to offset underlying weakness in the company itself.
Amazon and Microsoft haven’t been paying a dividend but the growth in those stocks has been immense.
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Growth stocks reinvest their ‘dividends’ as well which creates the same, albeit larger, compounding effect. Studies show that dividend stocks/strategy underperform the market. There are valid reasons to go for dividend investing, but these reasons do not include capital growth.
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Exactly.
Paying out dividends is just one choice for how a company allocates cash flow. I’d much rather a companies invests in R&D and acquisitions than pay out a substantial dividend.
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I’m not talking about companies like that though. I’m talking about large established cash rich companies that pay a dividend in addition to their R&D
One of my favourites is Astrazeneca. Their dividend in % terms is actually quite low at the moment because of the large share price growth in addition to regular dividends.
Also consider the likes of Insurance companies. They rake in large amounts of cash but there isn’t necessarily that much room to grow. Paying a dividend is a better alternative that just sitting on a mountain of cash.
BTW Microsoft do pay a small dividend, as does Apple
Growth stocks are all well and good if you pick the right one. they don’t all grow though!
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I personally do operate a mixture of growth and value investing.
The likes of AstraZeneca and insurance companies will fall in my value bracket if the share price is trading at enough of a discount.
My contention is that an investment strategy with a primary focus on dividends is a sub-optimal one for a younger investor - on the right side of 50 one might say! 
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