Happier Abroad Forum Community

I have been thinking a lot about investments recently. I had mutual funds and ignored them, but I recently sold because I don't trust the market. But then what can I trust? Not cash. I already bought silver under $20, and gold is just a gamble since it has no intrinsic value. The truth is that safe stocks can't be beat. A safe stock isn't a regular stock, it must have both real safety and real yield. So I came up with 3:

AMH - American Homes 4 Rent

I covered this in depth here:

viewtopic.php?t=18487

This stock is just like a hard asset because its entire value is backed by hard assets, houses.

GOV - Government Properties Income Trust

6.8% yield from renting to the government. This is safe, the government can always pay because it can print money. So this is like a high yield bond with decent inflation protection built in.

AAPL - Apple

Normally I would never buy a stock like this, but with a P/E of 13 on what is probably the best company in America, it's hard to refuse. With $43B in cash, this company looks very safe. Normally I would never buy a brand name stock because they always have a high P/E but the market seems to be putting this stock on sale for some reason, so I will buy.

I plan to divide my investments equally between these 3 stocks. As usual, I welcome any feedback.

I bought a very small amount of Apple stock 6 months ago. I'm attracted to low price earning ratios. I tend to just buy and hold and hang on for dear life.

Mostly I buy "income stocks" with dividend yields of 6% and over. One stock I have has a net yield of 10% ( I just hope that one doesn't go supernova). BP has been good for me - dividends have increased over the last year and the share price is increasing nicely.

I don't have a huge amount of investments by any stretch of the imagination. Just building it up slowly, reinvesting dividends and trying to keep my spending down. Eventually I hope to fund my overseas adventures through dividends.