Taxes and Dividends

An interesting tidbit crossed our desk the other day related to dividends, which is a topic many clients have been interested in with income from bond holdings at fairly meager levels. Morningstar reports that “342 of the S&P 500 companies increased their dividends (in 2011), while only five cut their dividends, leading to a net [...]

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Ecolab & Clorox

This week, we have some merger and acquisition news to pontificate on with regard to our portfolios.  In the Blue Chip Growth portfolio, our long-time holding Ecolab (ECL) announced it had reached an agreement to acquire Nalco Holding Company (NLC) for $8.1 billion in cash (30% of deal) and stock (70% of deal), including the [...]

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