Weekly Roundup - November 7, 2015

One of my guilty pleasures is watching CNBC.  I know, gasp!  How could I?  While I typically recommend that we all ignore the financial media there's times where it's actually useful.  Mainly the interviews with some really great business and investment minds that the average Joe just doesn't have access too.  I don't think I could call up Buffett and expect to get him to answer.  I got an idea for a post from one viewing this week which I hope to get up sometime this month but another morning there was an enlightening interview with Mel Karmizan. (I had no idea who he was but he had a very interesting anecdote)

Anyways so he was discussing the future outlook for the markets with the hosts and told us of a recent encounter with some of the best fund/investment managers in the business.  He didn't give names but seeing as how he was the CEO of CBS and Sirius at one point in his career I imagine he has access to some really big time investors.

The question he posed to these excellent managers was what kind of return he could expect if he gave them a large sum of money today that they could manage.  For the most part they responded with 6-7% which seems in line with my own expectations so it's nothing unreasonable.  However, he then proposed that he would give them the money but want a guaranteed 3% return each year and they could keep any excess returns.  Not a single one would guarantee the 3% to take him up on his offer.  I was quite surprised by the lack of interest from some of the "great" investment minds on this.

If you've been following along this week I was quite busy with the blog/writing.  With drilling being slow and working at night (distractions are much lower) I was able to concentrate and focus and get a lot of writing done.  Six articles posted this week.  Some regular posts written for next week and lots of ideas floating around for articles.  This was definitely a good week.

I also did a good job sticking to my workout program although I did get off schedule during the week.  This week was supposed to be a MWFSu schedule but I just couldn't get moving Wednesday when I got up and by the time I got to the gym it was packed.  I'm not of fan of having to wait around when I'm there to workout so I went to the store and headed up to the gym on Thursday.  I can tell that the habit of working out is finally starting to be ingrained in my body because that extra day off made my body crave some exercise.  Even better is that I'm down about 8 pounds over the last 3 weeks which is an added bonus!

I won't go into as much detail as last week so I'll just give a quick recap.  Monday I did front squats and push press both were EMOM set/rep schemes.  Total weight lifted that day was 6,845 lbs.  On Thursday I went with almost the same workout except I bumped up the weights by 10 lbs. and decreased the reps by one and then also added a mini EMOM with 4x3 (sets x reps) EMOM of Romanian dead lifts.  Total weight lifted on Thursday came to 8,225 lbs.  In total over the two days of working out this past week I moved over 7.5 tons of weight!  It's interesting when you put it in that perspective.  Eventually I'll get another page made up dedicated to my exercise and maybe some measurements or pics to show progress, but for now that's on the bottom of my to do list.

In case you missed them, here's the posts from this past week.

• Weights
• Recent Sell
• After the Run Up There's Still Double Digit Return Potential for Johnson & Johnson on Seeking Alpha
• Dividend Growth Investing at Work - Disappointing but Expected
• PepsiCo Inc.: You're Paying Up for this Consumer Staple on Seeking Alpha
• The Hershey Company: Sweet Dividends with Consistent Growth on Seeking Alpha

Also, be sure to sign up to receive posts via email and to follow me on Twitter@JC_PIP so you don't miss anything.  I also started a Facebook page to give people another option for keeping up to date on posts and happenings with the blog.

Once again I'd like to say thanks to each and every one of you that read, commented, and shared posts from here this past week.  I think this dividend growth investing and financial independence community is amazing and the openness from everyone is awesome.  Thanks again!

Now on to the links!

Building my dividend snowball to $30,000 in annual dividend income by 2024 by Dividend Growth Investor

Passive Income Update - Oct 2015 by Roadmap2Retire

Chevron (CVX) and ExxonMobil (XOM): Are the dividends safe? by Simply Safe Dividends

The futility of keeping score: Mark Zuckerberg made $2.5 billion today by Retire29

What you need to know about IBM before buying (or selling) by Sure Dividend

Dividend Income Update - October 2015 by DivHut

Ask the readers: What does retirement look like to you? by Income Surfer

Done detoxing by Living a FI

The difficulties of small cap investing by Financially Integrated

Investment Income Update - October 2015 by Retire Before Dad

A non-experts guide to early retirement by Eat the Financial Elephant

Freedom Fund Update - November 2015 by Dividend Mantra

Whole Foods vs Facebook: An Observation Regarding Excesses in Sentiment by Building a Stable Dividend Portfolio

Papa John's CEO John Schnatter: An Extraordinary Businessman by The Conservative Income Investor

Also, if you're looking for investment ideas, A Frugal Family's Journey keeps a list of stock analyses and recent buys from fellow bloggers.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Image courtesy of Gubgib on FreeDigitalPhotos.net.