Small (Ex)change

We get to used to asking "How's the stock market looking?" or "How is [] doing on the stock market?" but there are some sixteen stock markets. According to the Investment Frontier, the smallest are:

Stock Exchange	Country	Market cap
Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE)	Cyprus	$2.54B
Bolsa de Valores	Mozambique	$1.5B
The Lao Securities Exchange (LSE)	Laos	$1.4B
Damascus Securities Exchange (DSE)	Syria	$660M
Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE)	Rwanda	$480M
Douala Stock Exchange (DSX)	Cameroon	$317M
Cambodia Stock Exchange (CSX)	Cambodia	$176M
Trop-X	Seychelles	$43M

with an honorary mention to Yangon Stock Exchange in Myanmar, due to start trading this year

I Tell All the Stockbrokers

So tracking all this, possessing a familiarity with these terms and what they mean, is the province of the stock market analyst.
It's hard to get a clear bead on stockbrokers or on traders, and traders in this market are not like your fur traders or traders at physical markets. For that matter, the stockbroker has become virtual.

Trusts enough

• Unit Investment Trusts (UITs)
• Open-End Funds
• Exchange-Traded Notes (ETNs)
• Registered Trusts

Spread

I left those question marks in the table because I'd switched to Dividend.com who I figured should be the authority and, yes, their analysis is pretty exhaustive otherwise as my pilfered samples demonstrate. Maybe they don't do foreign banks and trust funds. How then to explain Volkswagen and Yamaha?

Our four shares in Volkswagen that we bought in 2011 would have returned dividends of 3.168 + 3.64 + 4.384 + 4.352 + 0.1 or, in other words, $15.64
That is, for Volkswagen AG

I could go and compare the other subsidiaries but I can't be arsed. The point is, a large company that can shrug and say "Hmm, we've had a bad year" after losing a few billion has still performed in the market in such a way as to affect returns for shareholders. Charging along on that scale has put the investor who plunked down four hundred and forty dollars in 2011, fifteen dollars sixty four in dividends in front and, if he or she sell them in disgust will nett $76.20. A grand total then of US$91.84 in profit. 20.8% of our investment which is more than you'd get in a savings account. True, you'd have to sell all four shares to get that but investors do this all the time.

What about our sixty five shares in Yamaha? They've made this easy
   1,007.50
+   650
+ 1,690
+ 2,600
+ 2,860
_______
   8,807.50 yen

this is just shy of A$114.50
or 23% of our purchase price

Add the A$1722.88 we've made in the shareprice rise and that $1837.38 has us celebrating by pumping out a tune on our Yamaha keyboard or going for a ride on our Yamaha motor-bike

II

VW would require a larger parcel of shares held for longer, Yamaha, with its jump in value is good over the shorter term.

Often investors hold onto stock for many years. This way they get the benefit of dividends and rise in value. There are ways to become rich doing this. And it's also about timing when it comes to selling. Or you may decide to continue to draw benefit. Even more recent stock can prove to have been a good buy.

The stock market doesn't hold interest to everyone. Some will have parents or grandparents who leave (a portion of) their portfolio and they can get by without knowing how an exchange traded fund works: does it have all these shares in other entities while having shares itself and is there an infinite regress?

ASX site asserts Exchange-traded products (ETPs) is the family name for the group of products comprising exchange-traded funds (ETFs), managed funds (MF) and structured products (SPs). There are over 100 ETPs accessible through ASX.

So, are we always dealing with one manner of Exchange-traded product or another? You might even have experience of managed funds and your own investments. Don't forget the structured products.

Funned out

So, without knowing what that percentage applies to, we know to take note of whether current dividend yield is low or high as that makes a difference to our returns.

Having a high or low indicated annual dividend, on the other hand, doesn't seem to make much difference. Your two shares in Public Storage give you the same return as your 32 shares in the Latin American Discovery Fund: fifty bucks
You might think so at first but those 32 shares cost sixty dollars more to start with and return 9.88% of our original investment. Still, this is nowhere near the disparity of the current dividend yield examples.

Gafisa is just really good value, as I imagine are the other companies on the cheap stock list

Company/Ticker	Number of shares	Dividends seen since 2011
Alexander's Inc	one	190
Apple Inc	one	6.99
Avnet	27	56.43
BlackRock	4	79.54
China Construction Bank	980	?
CocaCola Co.	45	628.42
Cooper Companies	16,666	4,999.80
Costco	6	46.80
ExxonMobil	6	77.52
Fidelity	16	56.32
ICBC	92	?
Institutional Financial Markets, Inc.	192	?
Macy's	18	101.67
Microsoft	19	102.88
Qatar National Bank	3	?
Sinopec Corp	71	208.68
Toyota	6	70.67
Volkswagen	4	?
Wal-Mart	9	84.15
Yamaha	65	?

Dividend in sight

Gafisa SA

Key stats and ratios

	Q2 (Jun '16)	2015
Net profit margin	-8.00%	3.09%
Operating margin	-6.84%	5.07%
EBITD margin	-	10.48%
Return on average assets	-2.28%	1.02%
Return on average equity	-5.10%	2.42%
Employees	4,024

Market capitalisation of $289 million

We buy a whopping 393 shares in Gafisa, entitling us to dividends of 

0.259674 x 393 = $102.05
0.068639 x 393 = $26.97
0.026695 x 393 = $10.49

Not paid every year and the amount has dropped considerably but we still pocket approximately $139.52 or 35% of our initial outlay in our first five years of trading

Public Storage

Key stats and ratios

	Q2 (Jun '16)	2015
Net profit margin	56.51%	55.33%
Operating margin	53.12%	51.73%
EBITD margin	-	69.61%
Return on average assets	14.33%	13.45%
Return on average equity	22.27%	20.50%
Employees	5,300

Market cap of $36.6 billion

and let's say we were able to buy two shares totalling $437.16

We'll get $57.70 or 13% paid in dividends

Latin American Discovery Fund, Inc (The)

Market capitalisation $69.06 million
$15.55 per share in 2011 (now $10.16) so we buy 32 shares for $497.60
13.34 + 1.36 + 12.85 + 3.95 + 12.51 + 1.17 + 4.03 + 1.03 + 0.10 = $50.34

Dividend conquer

The next thing I would concern myself with if I was investing the family savings in August 2006  or August 2011 and had my seer with me is

• Are those figures gathered for current dividend yield and indicated annual dividend of much use?
• if the value - and amount paid - is dependant on company performance, any percentage will vary accordingly
• if it is dependant on stockholder whim the amount will also change, only on a different measure
• the funds and such that appear in these lists may be middling, just offering high or low percentages for what is payable
• I don't think it hurts to know of Taitron Components even if you're not going to base any of your share trading on this knowledge
• So if I have shares in a company or as part of a Fund, does that figure translate straight out as a monetary figure i.e. I receive the amount of shares I hold x the dividend payment?

Let's say I have 32 shares in region (MORL), no, wait, 28 shares in Ennis, Inc. Market capitalisation is $440.75m 

Key stats and ratios

	Q2 (May '16)	2016
Net profit margin	7.39%	6.28%
Operating margin	11.74%	9.89%
EBITD margin	-	13.59%
Return on average assets	7.07%	8.44%
Return on average equity	9.10%	12.25%
Employees	6,018

37.94% x [figure used in calculation] x 28 each time there are dividends paid

investinganswers.com gives us a definition of Dividend Yield "Dividend Yield is a stock's dividend as a percentage of the stock price"

Dividend Yield = Annual Dividend / Current Stock Price

So, OK, what's the Annual Dividend?

We've bought shares in August so we're too late for the seventh of July payment. In October 28 x 0.155 = $4.34
Breakdown of dividends to July 2016

(0.155 x 28) x 2 = $8.680
(0.175 x 28) x 15 = $73.50
(0.35 x 28) x 1 = $9.80
(1.675 x 28) x 1 = $46.90

Stock has held its value hovering around the fifteen dollar value and there's $138.88 in the coffers. This may not help definitionally but at least we know that our initial outlay of $493.36 is holding steady and we've pocketed a third of that again in a short space of time (if the minimum holding is five hundred, I imagine there would need to be shares held in some other venture to take us over the line or, of course, we could have bought 29 shares at that price taking us to a total then of US$510.98)

II

At the lower end of current dividend yield, we survey PowerShares VRDO Tax Free Weekly Portfolio (PVI). Let's assume we bought at current price and have secured 20 shares to a total of $497.80

Market value is $62.3m according to one source. Google Finance (where we found the figure for Ennis) has market capitalisation of $63.48m

The next section doesn't apply as it's a Fund not a company

The amount paid in dividends, though, is certainly different.
(0.01778 x 20) x 1 = 0.3556c
(0.01607 x 20) = 0.3214c
(0.00999 x 20) = 0.1998c
(0.00887 x 20) = 0.1774
(0.00921 x 20) = 0.1842
(0.00984 x 20) = 0.1968
(0.00443 x 20) = 0.0886
(0.00317 x 20) = 0.0634
(0.0038 x 20) = 0.076
(0.00589 x 20) = 0.1178
(0.00332 x 20) = 0.0664
(0.00333 x 20) = 0.0666
(0.00219 x 20) = 0.0438
(0.0018 x 20) = 0.036
(0.0005 x 20) = 0.01
(0.00203 x 20) = 0.0406
(0.00114 x 20) = 0.0228
(0.00052 x 20) = 0.0104
(0.00066 x 20) = 0.0132
(0.00054 x 20) x 2 = 0.0216
(0.00012 x 20) = 0.0024
(0.00001 x 20) x 14 = 0.0028
(0.00005 x 20) x 17 = 0.017
(0.00148 x 20) = 0.0296
(0.0004 x 20) = 0.008
(0.00012 x 20) = 0.0024

A total of US$2.1746. Frankly, I'd rather deal with Buffett's Berkshire. He doesn't pay dividends; a lot less effort for greater reward. Keep your stinking two dollars seventeen.

Invested

So how does a novice with the requisite minimum $500 invest? There is no shortage of advisors and brokers who can answer that question. My problem with all these seminars and consultations is that I don't know what barrow they are pushing. The good news is that research can be easily done from home. I found Netbank Securities had some good videos so there the principle is similar: they tell you what's what and, with luck, they'll get you to buy your share parcels through them.

Certainly I'm a mug blogger with nothing invested but my super so what I did was sample from those companies and exchange trust funds that had featured on previous posts for their exceptional or noteworthy aspects. I wanted to see what would have happened to shares bought five years ago: would they have gone up or down or stayed stagnant, and were there dividends paid over that time worth the purchase.

As mug blogger data, there are a number of stumbles: some of those lists draw exclusively from Nasdaq where there are other stock exchanges with possibly quite different readings. I couldn't go back to August of 2011 on that index with any accuracy and had to use Yahoo Finance which did a good job but there were companies like Alibaba, MORL and (critically) Westrock for whom they had only the latest share price. Asia Leather (based, unbelievably, in India where cows are sacred) is the world's largest supplier but isn't publically listed. Other brands and entities like CVG Alcasa in Venzuela, D.B. Schenker, Group Kamach, a large congolmerate in Central African Republic, Jafza International in Djibouti, Kirribilla, Levi's, New South China Mall, Safi Group of Companies in Afghanistan, and Tuvalu Telcommunications Corporation don't appear either because they are trading under another name, are private companies or are (as I suspect is the case with Tuvalu Telecommunications) government instrumentalities.

Still, it can't hurt to toss around the details we do have and see what we can make of it. The one attribute the mug blogger has in all of this is impartiality. An expert might be in there trying to push one thing or another, the rank amateur knows just enough to avoid such activity.

II

Shares in Alexander's Inc were $376.99, allowing the chancer with that five hundred to buy a single share which he or she could now sell for $445.29, a profit of $58.30, subject to any broker's fees. Still, if you're squirreling away that much over five years, there are possibly other places you could have invested the three hundred and seventy five odd dollars in 2011 and made more from it.
And here we're talking about a share envelope that has shown there is continued and increased value.

But it's the volatility that keeps some potential investors away from the stock market so, if this is your concern, you'll probably be looking at real estate or just simply spend the money, at least knowing that you have had that holiday or bought that mink coat instead of seeing cash vanish on paper.

III

Speaking of that mink coat, if this blogger comes across a bit bolshie, why this sustained dive into shareholder value? Isn't that what every social warrior rails against? Isn't the problem that companies will forego their other responsibilities in order to keep the shareholders happy?

I think it's constructive to at least know something of how companies get to expand, how their products and services proliferate along with the profit. I'm as interested in this as anything else in the world. I don't think the Left should be sticking their fingers in their ears any more than the Right.

There is also the sense in which there is a commercial democracy, if that can ever exist, with those fabled Mum and Dad investors. Never mind the single investors who can really go to town.

IV

With our $500, we could also have bought nearly ten shares in Wal-mart or nearly five shares in Volkswagen. Our VW shares would be up to $129.05 and Wal-Mart $73.46 so a good return on investment all round.

The investor/stockholder in all of us would have been most excited by shares in Yamaha which went up from $7.62 to $27.62. Not only is that a neat rise, those with the five hundred to invest who put it it all on Yamaha - that is to say, we would have held sixty five shares (with some change left over from our five hundred) where we would now purchase only eighteen, or to put it more sensibly, which would now be worth... well, put away the calculator, that's an extra twenty dollars value added to each share we own and that's 65 x 20 = 1300. So, yes, that's one thousand three hundred dollars we've made in clear profit in five years, plus we still hold the original parcel.

I can see the allure.

V

Apple are the surprise here as their shares have dropped from $380.44 to $106.27. Clearly there is a complex correlation between perceived share value and market success.

Sinopec dropped from $7.02 to $5.58

VI

Start-off investors couldn't have bought shares in Associated British Foods, Burberry, Google cum Alphabet Inc, Seaboard Corporation or Shinsegae Inc. All worth way more than five hundred bucks and all going up in value apart from Shinsegae which had so much further to fall it isn't funny.

Here there's a further point I don't understand as Berkshire Hathaway in this index is suddenly affordable at a greatly shrunken $71.75 entry price, now only $144. Yes, doubled in value but nowhere near that two hundred and nineteen thousand dollar figure I coopted a few posts ago.
I did notice, as I was trawling through, that a company would often have different shoots that would have their own shareprice attached to it; one overarching company didn't have the share value, only components. I've brought some of these figures across myself. Could the Berkshire I was looking at in the last chart be a bit of the company while there was a larger Berkshire Hathaway (larger Shell etc.) with its share value registered. This would mean that some companies were all carved up by clever accountants or brokers while others, like Seaboard and Shinsegae are worth so much they couldn't care who could afford them.

VII

Company/Ticker	Share purchase price 2011	Current share value 2016
Alexander's Inc	376.99	445.29
Apple Inc	380.44	106.27
Associated British Foods	1,014.00	2,890.00
Avnet	18.49	35.35
Berkshire Hathaway	71.75	144.00
BlackRock	114.18	327.70
Burberry	1,299.00	1,305.00
China Construction Bank	0.51	0.61
CocaCola Co.	10.90	9.21
Computacenter	427.20	809.00
Cooper Companies	0.03	0.08
Costco	77.45	166.86
ExxonMobil	75.01	87.73
Fidelity	30.91	43.65
Google/ Alphabet Inc	806.93	800.11
ICBC	5.41	4.44
Institutional Financial Markets, Inc.	2.60	1.04
Macy's	26.61	33.91
Microsoft	26.12	58.06
Qatar National Bank	140.60	152.70
Seaboard Corporation	2,645.83	2,920.00
Shinsegae Inc.	308,000.00	182,000.00
Sinopec Corp	7.02	5.58
Toyota	78.00	115.84
Volkswagen	110.00	129.05
Wal-Mart	50.59	73.46
Yamaha	7.62	27.62

cont.

Company Name / Ticker	Indicated Annual Dividend
ProShares Ultra Oil & Gas Exploration & Production (UOP)	0.021952
Atlantic American Corporation (AAME)	0.02
Gold Resource Corporation (GORO)	0.02
Titan International, Inc. (TWI)	0.02
iShares MSCI Global Gold Miners Fund (RING)	0.013028
Hecla Mining Company (HL)	0.01
Radian Group Inc. (RDN)	0.01
PowerShares VRDO Tax Free Weekly Portfolio (PVI)	0.00984
Latin American Discovery Fund, Inc. (The) (LDF)	0.006282
Hull Tactical US ETF (HTUS)	0.0037

Indicated Annual Dividend

Company Name / Ticker	Indicated Annual Dividend
Westrock Company (WRK)	16.684
Alexander's, Inc. (ALX)	16
BlackRock, Inc. (BLK)	9.16
region (MORL)	7.434
Public Storage (PSA)	7.2
Equinix, Inc. (EQIX)	7
Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT)	6.6
RiverNorth Opportunities Fund, Inc.	6.48
Simon Property Group, Inc. (SPG)	6.4
NewMarket Corporation (NEU)	6.4

Cheap as (blue) Chips

Company Name / Ticker	Current Dividend Yield	Current Price
Institutional Financial Markets, Inc. (IFMI)	7.34%	1.09
Taitron Components Incorporated (TAIT)	8.62%	1.15
Gafisa SA (GFA)	2.02%	1.27
Memorial Production Partners LP (MEMP)	8.16%	1.39
SandRidge Mississippian Trust II (SDR)	29.06%	1.49
Navios Maritime Acquisition Corporation (NNA)	13.33%	1.49
Deswell Industries, Inc. (DSWL)	8.54%	1.57
SandRidge Mississippian Trust I (SDT)	29.54%	1.66
Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc. (WHLR)	12.14%	1.73
Valhi, Inc. (VHI)	4.35%	1.79
Wi-LAN Inc (WILN)	2.17%	1.81
Condor Hospitality Trust, Inc. (CDOR)	2.11%	1.89
Chesapeake Granite Wash Trust (CHKR)	7.94%	1.99
Hudson Global, Inc. (HSON)	10.10%	2.00