The Income & Growth Portfolio core strategy is based on generating current income and long-term capital appreciation. We look to hold positions as long as possible in order to capture the maximum in distributions, as well as the capital appreciation that invariably comes from a rising stream of dividends.
| The approach is bottom up. We look at companies’ insides first, focusing on sustainable yields and businesses that are becoming more valuable over time. We pay careful attention to all the earnings numbers, with the intent of determining whether those businesses are still on track.The key is to find healthy businesses that can thrive over the course of varying points in economic cycles. Companies should be able to weather tight credit conditions as well as high, and rising raw material costs. |
These businesses should not only be able to maintain a steady payout, but also be positioned to increase the dividend over time.
We think quality always wins out eventually, and thus stocks and preferred shares backed by strong underlying businesses should recover from short-term price dips. Our holdings are also broadly diversified over a wide range of industries, which has proven to be a reliable strategy to grow principal and provide portfolio stability over the years.
Over the long haul, we see major challenges from inflation, stemming from rising materials costs, and massive cash infusions injected into the banking system. That’s why we continue to look for yield plays where the distributions rise as the underlying business grows.
The Income & Growth portfolio will consist primarily of common stocks, preferred stocks, limited partnerships, and bonds with an objective to minimize the following risks:
• Inflation risk which diminishes purchasing power
• Credit risk by focusing the majority of holdings in investment grade securities
• Market risk by diversifying between various income sectors such as, REITs, utilities and preferred stocks.