Liebster Award Nomination

Ryan from My Dividend Growth just nominated me for a Liebster Award. A Liebster Award is an online award given by bloggers to other bloggers. It lets you learn more about the writers behind the blogs you follow by allowing the authors to answer questions that might not be normally discussed. Sounds like a great idea, and I appreciate the nomination, Ryan!

Ryan asks:

What is your most prized possession?
While I do have material possessions that I would hate to lose…bike, car, etc. My most prized possession is something less defined: it is good health. Much of my enjoyment in life revolves around physical activities. Since dividend investing is setting us all up for successful retirements, I’m going to need excellent physical health in order to continue to enjoy it into old age.

Which company would you want as your largest holding five years from now?
Apple is currently my largest holding. I initially bought it when the share price had dropped to around $400 pre-split (approximately $57 post-split). I love Apple products and felt they were incredibly valued at that time (I still do!). I’ve since acquired more shares. While I bought them as a growth stock, they have also begun paying dividends, which means I love it even more. The split also allows more people to own shares and is possibly setting themselves up for inclusion in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. While I wouldn’t be opposed to having Apple be my largest holding five years from now, farther into the future I feel that Visa is going to be a good bet. While they only pay a small dividend now, the high rate of dividend growth and EPS growth powered by a world increasingly buying everything on credit card, will mean that Visa will ultimately transition from a high dividend growth stock into a solid blue chip dividend payer like a Coca Cola. What better than to get in now and reap the rewards many years down the line? However, I hope to alleviate some risk by ultimately not having a single company be a large percentage of my portfolio.

What is something you’ve never done before but would like to?
Watching the Tour de France again this year got me thinking: it would be really fun to bike a few of the stages before the riders get there. You could then stay in a little bed & breakfast at the top, experience the culture, and then the excitement as the riders pass through. That, or just backpacking through Europe would be incredible.

If you had to start a business, what would it be?
I love trying local coffee shops and think it would be fun to run one. I was actually recently reading an article in Money magazine (which I got for free) entitled How This Former Techie Gave Her Career a Jolt, which discusses this very business venture. It definitely takes a lot of hardwork to be profitable and succeed in that crowded industry. Much of the potential for success has to do with location, so I’d have to carefully pick that. My coffee shop would use only the very best beans, have a wide variety of espresso drinks (since that is where the money is), and provide occasional music venues for local artists. While I do a lot of studying at coffee shops, going there to relax and listen to music is also very enjoyable as well. Basically, any business that I would create would have to be something that I enjoy. It should be a pleasure to go to work each day.

Another possibility would be real estate. In fact, I was just talking to someone today who works for a real estate business. Owning apartments and houses and renting them out to others would also be fun…it sure beats being the one paying the rent without establishing any equity. It would take awhile to collect enough properties to live off the income, but it would be something fun to try!

Who is your Investing idol?
There are any number of famous value investors that I look up, including Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, and Peter Lynch. Another investor, that I feel is less discussed in dividend investing circles, is Burton G. Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing. This is one of my favorite all time investing books. Mr. Malkiel talks about everything from the history of the first publicly traded companies to why any way to “game” the system will ultimately fail. It’s a classic as so much is any books by the aforementioned investors.

And, recently, I’ve begun doing options trading. Helping with that are the excellent education (and funny) videos, which are live streamed during the day, created by Tom Sosnoff and company at tastytrade.com. He advocates for an active and high number of occurrences approach to be successful over the long run. I’m starting small but already am seeing how options premium income will do well to supplement my usual dividend reinvestment methods.


The Liebster award also allows me to nominate additional blogs that I follow. I don’t know if they’ve been nominated yet, but if they choose to accept, I’ll be nominating:

All About Interest: AAI is a man of all trades, literally. While dividend investing still makes up a large portion of his passive income generation, he is also involved in options and real estate. And, he’s well on the way to his goal of retiring or semi-retiring by age 40. AAI is about my own age so it will be fun to see the progress we both make, though I know I won’t be ready to retire by 40! I also love how detailed his goals page is. If you haven’t already, I definitely recommend checking out his blog.

Martin @ Hello Suckers: Martin runs another very interesting investing site. Like me, he also started with dividend investing but has now branched into options trading. He talks about his successes and failures and, I believe, has been doing so well with the investing that he has actually started doing it as a business! Martin has been great in offering advice to a new options trader like myself.

Questions for the new nominees:
1) Favorite investment book? Non-investment book?
2) If you had all the free time in the world, what would you be doing?
3) Why did you start your investing blog?
4) What was your best and worst investment?
5) Favorite job you’ve had so far?

9 Responses

  1. Brent @ AAI says:

    Scott,

    I enjoyed the Q/A. I love the idea of owning a coffee shop. I can’t go a day without my espresso! Thanks so much for the nomination! I hope to get out a post this weekend.

    Take care

  2. Thanks for sharing as I love reading these. I too am a big Apple proponent and cant wait for an iphone 6 and healthy share bump rice. Will be huge!!!!
    Asset-Grinder recently posted…$2,126,094 Net Worth Update August 2014My Profile

    • scott says:

      No problem, Asset-Grinder. Looks like Apple started to take off today with the market as a whole. Almost up to its all time high already. I’m definitely not going to be selling for awhile…I feel that there’s still plenty of growth and new products/markets to come! Awesome net worth update, by the way!

  3. Scott,

    Really great job with these answers, there was a lot of useful information in them and it was cool to hear more about you. You timed your initial investment in Apple perfectly, and they still seemed undervalued at today’s prices. Also, I’ve been ready to pounce on Visa too here, so much dividend growth to be had from that company over the next 5 years.

    I hadn’t heard of Burton G. Malkiel or the tastytrade livestream and am excited pick his book up and check the stream out. The more info on options I can absorb the better.

    I am now craving some coffee and a bike ride. Thanks again for taking the time to answer so thoughtfully!
    Ryan @ My Dividend Growth recently posted…Liebster Award NominationMy Profile

    • scott says:

      Thanks, Ryan. I had some great questions to answer too so that made it easier. It has been fun learning more about the persons behind the blogs. I agree with you on Visa. I had a covered call that I sold on CSCO that recently expired. However, part of me was almost hoping that it would get called away so that I could use that cash to buy more Visa!

      Hope the bike ride was fun! 🙂

  4. Martin says:

    Hi Scott,

    thanks for the nomination. I got the nomination circa 4 years ago, but I dropped the ball. This time I will join.
    I liked your answers on Apple and Tom Sosnoff’s work. He is really a good source of information on options trading.

    Thanks and stay in touch!
    Martin recently posted…To Catch A TraderMy Profile

    • scott says:

      Hi Martin, Huh. Didn’t even know the Liebster nomination was around back then! Thanks for participating! Tastytrade has been great…it’s so fortunate that all that information is available for free.

  1. August 16, 2014

    […] thanks to Divgro, Asset Grinder, and Scott @ TwoInvesting for their nominations!  I guess this means I have 15 questions to answer!  I appreciate having […]

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