3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Unfortunately, very disappointing, 2007-10-21
I'd been looking forward to reading this book for some time based on reading a few of the reviews that had been circulating on 'The Dividend Growth Investment Strategy' by Roxann Klugman. But after reading it I was very disappointed for a couple of reasons in particular.
i) The book effectively finishes 122pages in (of a 290 page book) when you come across the Appendices.
Nothing new or revolutionary is introduced in this book and there's quite a few quotes used to support her point of view from investment leaders such as Warren Buffett. Which is fine if you're got something to add or a particular point of view, but this book is a little 'me too'. Much of the content has already been covered (in a more comprehensive fashion) in other 'value investing' titles. That's not to say the premise of dividend growth investing is invalid (it's not) - but you're likely to finish with more questions than you started with.
ii) The first 122 pages really felt like an introduction - but there's not much depth to the book.
In all fairness, the book is written well in a down to Earth fashion; problem is, is that there's just no depth to the content and when you get to the appendices you feel ripped-off because all the momentum Roxann Klugman builds in earlier chapters ends abruptly. Leaving you with 100+ pages of outdated data on a few selected companies.
There's not really anyone I would recommend this book to. If you're a beginning investor then there are better books available that are more comprehensive and you'll find yourself keeping as a reference. If you've been investing for a while, then this book is really too shallow to be of any real use, and not the sort of thing you would keep as reference.
If you're still really keen on this book, then I suggest you look for it second hand or borrow it from a library.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A simple but powerful strategy, 2006-03-22
I bought this book and 'Beating the S&P with Dividends' that cover the same topic. Rozann's presentation was much better in laying out the strategy and the concepts behind the strategy. The only drawback with the book is that the data on stocks listed in the book are a little dated. However, the strategy is the most important part of the book. You can always find up-to-date stock/company information on the Internet. It is a good fast read and I have applied the strategy to my IRA stock holdings.
The 'Beating the S&P with Dividends' has more up-to-date company information and various stock lists with different focuses. I used the information for both books to make changes to my stock holdings.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
A Good Strategy for Investing, 2005-04-17
This book introduces an excellent idea for investment. Basically, you should look for well-established companies with a good track record of dividend increases, invest, and wait 30 years. If you have less than 25 years until retirement, this stategy might not work so well for you because the real wealth development tends to kick in at around the 25 year mark and shoots up from there. If you have less time than that, then you'll only see a modest return on your investments.
The author provides her pick of top performers historically. Of course this doesn't mean that these will continue to perform in the future. The only weak point of this book is that it is based on data from the tech bubble era of the late ninties. If you plan on taking the authors recommendations, be sure to do your homework and check up on the companies to see how they have weathered the years since the burst of the tech bubble. I would say about 75 percent of the recommendations are still good, while a few such as AIG may not be so smart right now. Just be sure to do your homework. It might be time for the author to give us an updated version of this book.
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
Insightful and thought provoking, 2004-04-23
I've been investing in stocks and reading investment books for 5 years. Ms. Klugman's book is definately one of the best I've read.She makes a very cogent arguement for this style of investing, which in a nutshell is:
1. Dividend growth shields investors from emotional turmoil of having your investments sink in value, since these stocks tend to stand up well and also because of the dividend income stream. This is very important if you have a low threshold for financial panic.
2. Dividend growth provides relatively small income streams at first, presumably when you don't need income (and when your taxes are highest), but it grows so that at retirement you will have a large annual income.
3. Dividend growth strategy should have much higher returns than bonds, since your dividend income will grow, while bonds pay static returns.
4. If you hold stocks in an IRA and just live off the dividends and pass the stocks to your heirs, it is a perfect tax shelter for transfering huge amounts of wealth, since all the capital gains on the stocks are not taxable when the stocks are inherited.
Ms. Klugman does mention in passing that Dividend Growth is not necessarily the highest return strategy, and probably will not even keep pace with an index fund. However, Ms. Klugman makes a very compelling case for this style of investing. In addition, her observations about the Wall Street in general are insightful and make good reading.
I have read over 20 books on investing. This is the among the few that I am still mulling it over 2 weeks after I finished reading it.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Good for part of your portfolio, 2003-09-17
This is a very good book especially for the faint of heart and those who shirk at aggressive growth stocks.In my opinion, this would be most useful as long as it represented part of your portfolio (especially for younger investors) I also agree with this author on bonds. They cannot compare with equities except in those rare times when interest rate are high and start coming down. Bonds are not a good long term strategy - but equities are.I am using this strategy along with agressive no load mutual funds. You can double your money every 4-5 years with mutual funds and save on the commissions. President Bush's new tax plan will make this dividend strategy program even more lucrative (as longas the Dmocrats don't screw it up)The dividend growth strategy is an excellent book and I highly recommend it along with the WSJ and IBD to research those dividend stocks.