Investor Portfolios

The S&P 500, or just S&P measures the stock performance for 500 of the largest publicly traded US companies across various sectors. It is widely recognized as the standard benchmark and gives a strong indication on the health of the U.S. stock market.

Creating a diversified portfolio can be a time consuming challenge for investors. While some of you may be interested in performing the due diligence of researching individual stocks for your portfolio, others might want an alternative approach outside of this method.

The standard definition of a blue chip stock is often associated with terms such as “financially sound”, “industry leader”, and “robust cash flow”. While this is true, it can lead investors to allocate their portfolio into companies fitting these characteristics without realizing their true opportunity cost over the long-term.

A dividend is a portion of a company’s earnings paid directly in the form of cash to eligible shareholders. These payments can be monthly, quarterly, or annually and all decisions in regards to dividends are controlled by the board of directors for a publicly traded company.