As I started learning about investing back in mid-2016, I found dividend investing appealing to me. I like the idea of having "dividend machines" - receiving a secondary stream of income in the form of dividends. However, people have been burnt by investing in dividend stocks or Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). This is because dividend yield is not the only factor when it comes to selecting a dividend stock or a REIT; we must also check if the dividends will remain consistent or increase in the future.
I signed up for the Dividend Machines 2018 course offered by The Fifth Person in June and attended their Live Workshop held on Aug 2018.
What do you get from signing up for this course? This course is comprehensive; it comes with online content, a forum for you to ask questions and share your knowledge, as well as free access to their Live Workshop.
Online Content
Their online course content is split into 5 modules:
Introduction
This module shares why income investing may appeal to you and compares the performance of dividend-paying stocks to non dividend-paying stocks.
Personal Finance
Before starting to invest, you should always understand your current financial position, know your investment goals, and create an investment plan. This module will show you how.
Dividend Stocks
This module is the “main dish” of the course, and you will learn the 8 steps required to evaluate if you should buy a particular stock for its dividends.
Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
The Fifth Person mentions that there is a different way to value REITs, and this module will show you how. For those of you who have heard of The Investment Quadrant, you will probably be familiar with this method. The Investment Quadrant is another course offered by The Fifth Person that is primarily geared towards those looking towards value investing.
Portfolio Management
How to manage risk through diversification and portfolio weighting, etc.
Q&A Forum
This forum is a place where you can ask any questions you may have regarding the online content or the Workshop. The Fifth Person will answer your questions (while they are busy sometimes, you can usually expect a reply within 3 working days). You can also view or answer the questions of other members who signed up for the course.
All Access Workshop
Sometimes, The Fifth Person will conduct workshops where they will go through the content found in the online modules, and provide you with a set of “lecture notes” on the day of the workshop. You will also get some practice in applying the concepts being taught.
During the workshop, The Fifth Person will also talk about Dividend Machines Professional, which is a paid subscription service. If you find that sifting through the companies’ annual reports and processing the numbers is not for you, you can opt for this service. One good thing is that they don't up-sell this service to you and they make it quite clear that it is not meant for everyone. If you are interested to find out more about the service, they will hand you a form for you to fill in at the end of the workshop.
Dividend Machines Professional is not cheap though. The idea is that the base course should be good enough for you to learn how to value and invest in dividend stocks, while the Dividend Machines Professional is targeted towards those who understand how to value them but do not enough time to do research or read through the annual reports to make their decision.
Conclusion
My dad used to tell me that most of the investment courses or seminars that are being heavily advertised or marketed will cost thousands of dollars, and yet they do not offer enough value to justify the price they charge. However, I felt that Dividend Machines is well worth the money I paid for it, and I will recommend it to those who wish to learn more about dividend investing.
However, do take note that their intake is only open for a few weeks every year, so if you are still interested and sign ups have closed, do register for the wait list here.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
