#48

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1. Tell us a little about yourself, your background Etc.

2. On this particular show we are going to be focusing on Dividend Growth Investing which is an investment strategy Derek uses. Tell me how did you first discover this strategy and what attracted you to it?

3. On your website engineer my freedom.com I note you are currently investing in 40 companies. Companies like Coca-Cola, Cisco & Royal Dutch Shell. How do you pick these companies?

4.Do you get concerned by being too heavy in one sector like say financial or Energy?

5. Does the geography of where the companies are based come into? Like obviously you live in Ireland and clearly wouldn’t want to invest only in Irish companies like say Ryanair but if you were living in USA it would be very tempting and easy to pick say 20-30 US based companies like Apple or Google.

6. I note from listening to some of your podcast’s that you are considering cutting the size of companies you hold in your portfolio from say 40 down to maybe 20 or 25. I personally would feel more diversified the more companies I hold shares in but admit it must be allot of effort and time focusing on having 40 companies to keep track of all of them and manage the portfolio. What is your main reason for building a more focused core portfolio and how do you plan to implement it?

7. You obviously will be receiving monthly or quarterly cash dividends which presumably you choose how they get reinvested and into which company to move them to. How do you decide on where to move the money. Like in a strategy I’m familiar with called the permanent portfolio you have Gold, Long Term Bonds, National Stocks and Cash which are all supposed to be 25% each asset so you would be aiming to keep everything in balance if it ever got out of whack. Is this the same in dividend growth investing: selling your winners and buying more of your losers?

8. How does tax work? I presume you pay tax on dividend’s payouts? I note you use a tax accountant/proffessional, how much of a difference has this made in saving on your taxes?

9. When you choose a company what are the key qualities you are looking for?

10. What are red flags for you? Could it be companies with allot of debt? Or industries that have been effected by new technologies or political changes in law etc.

11. I mentioned to you in a recent email that the only way I could convince my wife to start investing outside of her pension was that if she could invest in 2 companies one being Disney and the other being Starbucks. Since buying a share in both they’ve never quite recovered to more than we paid for the share but they keep getting close and going down again. My wife is determined to hold them forever and never sell. What are your thoughts on these companies and as a dividend growth investor would you personally drop them or just wait things out?

12. How easy in Ireland is it to get started investing in Dividend Growth investing? I know in the UK we have the likes of trading 212 and the like.

13. If dividend growth investing wasn’t an option, how would you invest? Ie in property (as I know in Ireland like UK this is very popular) or index funds? Crypto? Gold?

14. Is there any good websites or books you can recommend to get started?

15. Finally Derek been a pleasure having you on what would be the best way for my listeners to find you online? Website? Twitter?

Be sure to check out Derek's website, Twitter and podcast:

https://www.engineermyfreedom.com

https://twitter.com/EMF_01

https://anchor.fm/dividend-talk