Utility stocks and real estate investment trusts could actually become investments to choice. One way to cut through all of the information clutter that bombards us these days is to focus on the core concepts of investing. Growth is the phenomenon of creating a good stock portfolio and letting it do its thing. History tells us that an annual return of 12 percent is reasonable. At that rate, you would double your money every six years.
Income is provided in the form of dividends and interest.
Bonds have become the forgotten sisters on Wall Street. However, intermediate-term Treasury and municipal securities offer rates that will look very nice in a couple of years. Dividend yields of 6 percent or 7 percent compounded by reinvestment and modest price appreciation can get you a comfortable double-digit return. Of course, none of these opportunities have the sex appeal of a hot dot-com stock or bullish biotech, but they are the kind of investments that will allow you to cut down on your extracurricular reading and just stay with the wonderful information you find in your daily newspaper.