Dividend Investing Clearly Spotlights Failure

If I invested $100,000 into the stock market in 2008 and saw the collective value of my stock holdings fall to $70,000 within a year, I'd be thinking "What the heck just happened?" Do I need to adjust my strategy? Are my stock selections failing me? One of the benefits of defining one's goals based on income generation is that it is easy to find the problem spots in the strategy and replace them as necessary. Let's assume that I am generating $2,000 per year in passive income from my investment holdings. And let's also assume that 200 shares of Wells Fargo (WFC) serve as one of the sources of the portfolio's income. At the start of 2009, Wells Fargo paid out a dividend of $0.34 per share, which comes out to $1.36 annualized. When the worst of the financial crisis hit, Wells Fargo had to slash its dividend to... Read more