First, thanks for visiting my site. I hope you have found it informative and useful.

Yes, my chosen stocks are admittedly high risk, as risk is naturally proportional to gain. In a previous posting about why I buy ETFs, I did write a paragraph addressing the risks of ETFs. Most of the ETFs I have are highly leveraged, so that alone increases the risk factor. I also have an entire post about risk tolerance, which also may give you some insight into my thinking about risk.

So why am I sticking my neck out and not opting for something safer, like dividend growth companies and maybe index funds? Because I’m in my 40s and just don’t have the time and/or capital to reach the same level of income via dividend growth stocks. The issue I have with the dividend growth strategy is that most dividend growth stocks have yields that just currently meet or barely exceed inflation (which has been at about 2-3% and most dividend growth stocks have yields in the 3-5% range). When you’re younger and time is on your side, then the dividend growth strategy is good, but it requires more time and/or capital to achieve.

As for how long I have been holding my dividend stocks, here are my current stocks and when I made my most recent purchase of them. Some shares have taken time to build up (for example, I made 6 purchases from 2009 to 2010 to own a total of 1500 shares of EXG),

BGY 05-2010
CFP 10-2011
CIK 10-2008
DHY 06-2013
EXG 07-2010
?? 07-2014
NCV 11-2013
OIA 05-2013
DMF 08-2013
DSM 11-2013
HTR 05-2014
PFN 12-2014
HQL 08-2014
RSO 12-2014
VFL 12-2014
CTCM 01-2015