Thursday Tool – Seeking Alpha Shopping List

When I shop on Amazon, I often add something to a shopping list so that I can refer to it later. Sometimes the price goes down and sometimes something better comes along. I do the same with investments. I’m always looking to buy an investment that looks undervalued and that has a history of dividend growth. A stock or ETF “shopping list” gives me an idea list. The idea list is also known as a watch list. Most wise investors keep an eye on their investments and they also keep an eye on potential investments. Charles Payne, in his book Unstoppable Prosperity, also recommends keeping a watch list

A good tool for a watch list is the free Seeking Alpha portfolio. You can create an account and create a list of the stocks and ETFs you own. But you can also create a portfolio that is your watch list. In today’s illustration, I am watching BP, DRI, FDVV, ITW, KO and LLY. I own shares of DRI and ITW, so I am watching them because I want to buy more if the opportunity looks appealing. The others I have listed are not recommendations. They are an example of both stocks and an ETF (FDVV) I decided to use for this post.

As news items appear for these investments, I get an email informing me so that I can go to Seeking Alpha to read the details. Today various news items appeared for DRI, including an earnings report and a dividend announcement.

The beauty of this tool is that you can click on the “Data” heading and see a great deal of information about the items in your watchlist. In this example I am showing dividend information. This includes the Ex-Dividend Date, dividend dollar amount, dividend yield, the payout ratio, and the dividend growth rate.