The Dick Davis Dividend: Straight Talk on Making Money from 40 Years on Wall Street

Acknowledgments.

About the Author.

Introduction.

Can 95 Million Investors Be Wrong?

A Challenge: Blunt Honesty without Turning Off the Investor.

Where I’m Coming From.

Housekeeping Notes.

Chapter 1: Personal Background.

Pre–Wall Street.

One-of-a-Kind Career on Wall Street.

Post–Wall Street.

Modesty Adds Credibility.

Part One: Deepest Convictions About Successful Investing After 40 Years On Wall Street.

Chapter 2: The Three Best Things to Have before Starting to Invest.

Luck.

Longevity.

Deep Pockets.

Chapter 3: Six Absolutes.

1. Nobody Knows the Answers.

2. There’s Always an Exact Opposite Opinion.

3. We’re Predisposed to Fail, But Not Predestined.

4. There Is Symmetry in the Market.

5. The Market Is King—News Is Mostly Irrelevant.

6. The Durability of Major Trends Is Underestimated.

Chapter 4: Seven Core Convictions.

1. Asset Allocation Is Key to Managing Risk.

2. Proper Entry Level Is Crucial.

3. Be Aware of the Negatives: There’s Always a Column A and a Column B.

4. The Best You Can Do Is Put the Odds in Your Favor.

5. The Worst You Can Do Is Be Totally and Instantly Informed (A Critique of CNBC).

6. Many Strategies Can Work—The Key Is Consistency.

7. Index Funds: The Answer for Most, But Not the Whole Answer.

Chapter 5: Thirty-Five Nuggets.

1. After You Buy, It’ll Always Go Lower.

2. CEOs on Their Own Stock.

3. Conventional Wisdom Is More Conventional than Wisdom.

4. Humility Is Sadly Lacking on Wall Street.

5. A Sure Thing If You Have the Patience.

6. No Single Stock Has to Be Bought.

7. The Sticky Question of When to Sell.

8. Mergers Are Good for Everyone Except Stockholders.

9. Get Children Started Early.

10. Don’t Rebuke Yourself.

11. Face It, It’s History; Put It Behind You.

12. Investigate, Then Invest—Hogwash.

13. Cramer versus Kirk.

14. How to Answer Questions about the Market.

15. Giving Advice to Relatives—Tread Lightly.

16. When Greed Paid Off.

17. Losses Are Inevitable—A Big Loss Unacceptable.

18. ETFs Are a Beautiful Thing.

19. Rising Dividends Are More Important than Big Dividends.

20. The Broker and the Case for Discretion.

21. All Investors Are Not Created Equal.

22. Low Commissions Make Online Trading Hard to Resist.

23. Understand Your Own Temperament.

24. The Upside-Down Stock Market.

25. Every Group Has Its Day.

26. “When” Is More Important than “What”.

27. No Place to Hide for the Investor.

28. The Rarity of Inside Information.

29. What’s a Reasonable Return?

30. The Market Is Typically Dull and Indecisive.

31. Interest Rates—The Most Difficult of All to Forecast.

32. The Brilliant Market Call.

33. Your Results Will Differ From Your Fund’s.

34. You Can Make Money in a Down Market.

35. No One Has a Monopoly on the Right Answers.

Part Two: Okay, So What Do I Do With My Money?

Chapter 6: Active versus Passive Investing.

The 80-20 Solution.

Passive Investing—An Overview.

Index Funds: What’s Most Important To Know.

Chapter 7: Passive Investing: Twenty-Eight Model Index Fund Portfolios.

Setting the Table.

Paul Farrell: Lazy Man Portfolios.

Twenty-Eight Model Index Fund Portfolios.

Chapter 8: Active Investing with Mutual Funds.

Ways for Do-It-Yourselfers to Outperform the Market: Introduction.

Life-Cycle/Target Retirement Funds.

Mutual Funds: 18 Key Points.

Chapter 9: Active Investing with Stocks.

Newsletters.

“My One Favorite Stock” Lists.

Piggybacking the Masters.

Virtual Investing.

Stock Screens.

Brokerage Focus Lists.

Stock-Picking Columnists.

The CAN SLIM Approach: William O’Neil.

The Magic Formula: Joel Greenblatt.

Jeremy Siegel’s Dividend Approach.

Private Money Managers.

Best Web Sites and Blogs.

Chapter 10: Conclusion.

Great Investment Books: The Right Kind of Homework.

Sayings and Quotations.

Wrap-Up: What I Hope You Take Away.

Index.