Unpopular Opinion
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Rate of return and dividends are not the same thing. Dividend payouts are usually closer to 2-2.5% for an index fund loke the S&P500. At those rates, you'd nees closer to $5 mil/$100k of desired annual income. For the regular stocks, in order to get that money, you'd have to actually sell shares, which means your earning potential off the stock decreases over time (in addition to the buying power of that money decreasing over time as well). It takes about $11 today to buy what would cost $1 in 1960...if we assume a linear trajectory for inflation, that $100k you'd pull in from that $5m would be worth less than $10k by the time our hypothetical athlete reached 75. While I can't see into the future, i don't imagine there will be many job opportunities for a 75 year old who's been out of the job market for 50 years and $10k/year probably won't even be enough to feed themselves.
Interesting. I didn't realize that dividend rates are so much lower than rate of return. Why are they so much lower? Does that mean that your money is only growing at 2-2.5% in an index fund or does that mean that your investment is growing at the same time as you are taking out a portion of your returns as a dividend?
I'm just starting to learn about investing as I try to shift some of my savings towards long-term investments. I think I need to find a fee-based financial planner to get me pointed in the right direction.
First, I'm not qualified or certified to give financial advice. I can't and won't provide any investing advice... Basically, IANAL, but for investing instead of legal stuff.
So, say I start a publicly traded company called Goople. You buy 10 stocks in Goople for $100 per share. So you have $1000 total in Goople stick now. Since I'm a hypothetical business genius, the stock price quickly grows to $150 a share. You now have $1500 in stock value, but you don't get a check for $500... you just have an asset that has grown in value. If you want to get $500 in cash, you'd need to sell some of your shares. Sometimes, you can buy and sell fractions of stocks, but for this example, we'll say you can only trade full stocks...so at $150/share, you need to sell 4 stocks for $600...you're broker will take a cut and you'll likely have to pay taxes on that $600 so we'll say you end up netting $520. Now you have some cash, and you have 6 shares of stock left. Now, originally, the stock going up $50 meant you made $500 dollars (increase in stock value x shares held). Now, if the stock goes up another $50....you only make $300 because you only have 6 stocks left. Now, even if the market rate stays the same, your absolute earnings have decreased. This is what makes selling stocks to love on untenable... the more stocks you sell, the slower your returns grow. Dividends are when the company pays you a quarterly or annual payment based on the stocks you own and the performance of that stock, even if you never sell a share. If the company has a bad quarter or year, you dont get paid either...sonif you're trying to survive off dividends, you (or your broker) need to pay WAY more attention to the company's financials and forecast or you might not have enough money to survive. Usually, companies want to pay the lowest dividends they can because dividends come out of the company's profits. Smaller companies that are growing will pay little/no dividends because they want to reinvest that money back into the business to fuel growth. Additionally, many dividend-paying companies are running high debt ratios, so your dividend payments are likely to go down when interest rates increase because the company needs more money to service that debt. Rising intereat rates also make borrowing more expensive for you, so the easiest way to offset those dividend losses - going into debt yourself - is also harder to do.