Fools were out and about this past week in an investing world jam-packed with actions and ideas. Here are three articles you might find useful as you decide how to invest your money.
Will These 3 Monster Dividends Be Around Forever?
Dividends are great, but not if companies don't or can't keep paying them. Fool analyst Brian Stoffel helps investors figure out what shape dividends are in, using three companies with "monster" dividends as examples. Oil and natural gas trust Enerplus
Investors also need to look at whether a company is going to keep paying its dividend. Brian suggests using metrics including how much of the company's earnings are used to pay the dividend, how much of the company's free cash flow is used to pay the dividend, and how the company has been growing its dividend. Enerplus stumbles in this part of the examination. "Enerplus not only has negative free cash flow, but it worsened from a loss of $43 million in the first quarter of last year to a loss of $250 million in this year's first quarter," Brian wrote. "With numbers like these and a historically shrinking dividend, you'd be better off staying away" from this stock.
Read the article to check out all of Brian's analysis.
Charlie Munger's 30 Best Zingers of All Time
Berkshire Hathaway's
Here are just four of the quotes Morgan has put together: one on business, one on life, and two on banks, with a little bit of Hitler thrown in.
On patience: "Almost all good businesses engage in 'pain today, gain tomorrow' activities."
Life advice: "Don't do cocaine. Don't race trains. And avoid all AIDS situations."
On investing in banks: "A friend of mine won't touch banks. His attitude is that sooner or later the bastards will go crazy. I think that's irrational. You have to be able to recognize the ones that stick out. Wells Fargo and US Bancorp
avoid stupidity better than most. And Wells admits that it had its head up its [behind] when it made some of its mortgage loans. They know it wasn't their finest moment. I'm comfortable with people like that." (NYSE: USB) On regulation: "When Hitler was in his bunker before he shot himself, he said, 'This isn't my fault. The German people just don't appreciate me enough.' That's the attitude of a lot of bankers. They think their silliness is necessary. Banks will not rein themselves in voluntarily. You need adult supervision."
Read the article for a bigger dose of Munger and to find out his rule of investing.
Facebook's Next Moneymaker
Facebook
Tim noted that a website's users are only as valuable as the people who are willing to pay for the opportunity to sell to them. The guys talked about LinkedIn
Sentiment on Facebook has quickly gone from raves to mockery, Tim said, and this makes the stock "interesting."
Watch the video for more insight into the question of how Facebook is going to make money from the millions of people who use the site. And get The Motley Fool's free report on "Forget Facebook -- Here's the Tech IPO You Should Be Buying."