Maximizing a stock market investment

There are several factors an investor in the stock market should consider for a maximum return on an investment:

1. All stock purchases should be commission-free.

2. All stocks purchased should be from a company that has a history of raising their dividends every year.

3. The company should not only have a history of raising their dividend every year, but should also show price appreciation in the market place, on a year to year basis.

4. All dividends from the companies should be rolled-over into more shares of the company, until retirement. This should be done by the company, for the shareholder, commission-free.

5. The companies purchased should have staggered dividend pay-out dates so the income from 12 companies will provide the shareholder cash dividend income every week of the year. No more than 12 companies should be owned, otherwise, you're probably spreading your money too thin.

6. A systematic approach of dollar-cost averaging should be done on a quarterly basis. A savings plan should be adopted to add to your holdings every quarter, along with the dividend reinvestment.

7. Stocks purchased should pay a dividend yield of at least 2.0% or better. A low 2.0% dividend yield isn't necessarily bad because it means the company in question is using most of their profits too expand. In other words, it's a growth stock with business, profits and earnings growing. A growth stock makes up for the lower dividend yield because their stock prices will more than likely rise faster.

8. The company should have been in business at least eight years, showing dividend increases each year. This will eliminate the risk involved in putting money into a risky new start up company (the kind that is going to change the world - they are just too hard to find).

9. The company must have a stock dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP). If the dividend paid by the company is $2.63 for the quarter, all of that $2.63 will purchase a further percentage of shares (partial shares) and this should be done automatically for you by the company or their Transfer Agent.

10. The companies you purchase should be purchased with the intent of realizing ever-increasing cash dividends for you and your family for the rest of your lives.

Everything you would need to know to start an investment program which emphasizes the considerations above is explained to you in my book The Stockopoly Plan - Investing for Retirement; published by American-Book Publishing.

Below is an excerpt from the book I would like to share with you!

Have you ever noticed how some words in the English language are so perfectly named for what they describe? And how some words seem to be, I guess you could say backwards? For instance, the word sunflower! How wonderfully aptly named is the sunflower, that beautiful yellow flower that follows the sun from sunrise to sunset. And then there are those words in the English language where there meaning appears to be backward, so to speak - like parkway and driveway. When my car is parked at home, I would think it would be parked on, well, a parkway - and when I'm on the road driving somewhere, I would think I'd be driving on a - a driveway.

In the stock market world, I think the word analyst is a perfect word in the English language and stockbroker sounds right to me, too. And this leads me to what I call the 'brainwashing mantras' of Wall Street.

The brainwashing mantras of Wall Street may take the form of a number, such as a stock rating of 1, 2, 3 etc. Or the mantras may be a star, 1 star, 2 stars etc. The mantras may be a word or a group of words- attractive, unattractive, neutral, market perform, market out-perform, market under-perform, market under-weight, market equal weight, market over-weight, sector perform, strong buy, buy, sell, strong sell.

These mantras are so ingrained in Wall Street and investor's minds that they have created multi-billion dollar industries. There are other types of mantras, such as RSI (relative strength index - a trading volume indicator), Bollinger Bands (named after its creator John Bollinger (he use to be a regular on CNBC) and the bands deal with the channels a stock trades in, in relation to its 'moving average'- another mantra), Stochastics (used to tell if a stock is 75 % overbought - too many people have been buying) or 25% oversold (too many people have been selling), Momentum, MACD (Moving Average Convergence/Divergence ?price of the stock, up or down, in relation to its moving average), 50 day, 200 day moving averages, triple bottoms and tops, pendants, flags, bear and bull markets, head and shoulders formations, double bottoms, P/E ratios etc, etc, etc.

All these mantras serve a purpose (and if you're inclined to trade in the market they are, I admit, useful tools). They create commissions.

And in my opinion, have no meaning what-so-ever for the long-term, dollar-cost averaging, buying investor of company's shares, free of commission charges, whose companies raise their dividend every year, with the investor's idea or purpose being to provide an 85% tax-free income, through ever-increasing dividends for the rest of their lives, no matter what the price of the stock at any given time in the market place may be.

For more excerpts from the book 'The Stockopoly Plan - Investing for Retirement' visit http://www.thestockopolyplan.com

You have permission to this article either electronically or in print as long as the author bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (typos excluded). Please provide a courtesy e-mail to charles@thestockopolyplan.com telling where the article was published. (Word Count 988)

Charles M. O'Melia is an individual investor with almost 40 years of experience and passion for the stock market. The author of the book 'The Stockopoly Plan'; published by American-Book Publishing. The book can be purchased at: http:/http://www.pdbookstore.com/comfiles/pages/CharlesMOMelia.shtml