Let's be honest, we all love being able to turn on the TV to watch our hundreds (if not thousands) of channels and grab our iPhones or iPads in order to check our E-mail, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. However, the constant and overwhelming bombardment of all kinds of information can make investing decisions, or finding any reliable sources of information, rather difficult.
It is imperative for investors to develop a strategy and a set of investing principles that they will stick to through thick-and-thin. You need to have already planned out your path so that when the fork in the road presents itself there is no decision to be made, and no inclination to panic. If we buy into hype surrounding investing trends and strategies that you hear about from CNBC, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, or any other source for that matter, we inevitably get ourselves into trouble.
Examine your investment goals and let those goals dictate your investing and speculating activities. Develop criteria that your investments must met prior to investing. If you like a stock but believe that it's share price is too high, keep track of it or place a buy order should it reach your desired price.
Examples of criteria that you might establish:
Dividend Yield > 4%
Dividend Growth (5 Year Average) > 5%
P/E (TTM) < 12
Here are a number of articles that can help you begin to define your investment strategy and criteria.
Market Watch: Be an investor or a trader, but not both, by Chuck Jaffe
Seeking Alpha: Bolster your portfolio with dividend stocks, by Evan Sundermann
Seeking Alpha: 5 indicators of a great investment opportunity, by Evan Sundermann
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