 What is going on everybody, Estas here. Welcome back to another video. So in today's video, we're going to be talking about why I'm personally buying dividend aristocrats heading into the middle of 2019, heading into the rest of 2019. So before we get into this, what is a dividend aristocrat for those of you guys that have no idea, right? So a dividend aristocrat is a company that's increased its dividend year in and year out for 25 plus years at least, right? There's companies out there that have done this for 50 years, 75 years. There are some that have even increased their dividend for 100 plus years and those group of companies, they are considered dividend aristocrats. So why am I looking to buy into dividend aristocrats, right? People may be thinking, aren't growth stocks the best way to go in this kind of economy? Well, that is something that we want to talk about, I'm going to talk about in this video. So growth stocks are companies that are growing their revenues, growing their profits at a rapid pace where they can't really pay a dividend because they are putting most of their money back into the business to grow that business through research and development, investing and maybe buying other companies, investing in products, hiring new people, stuff like that, right? So they don't have the excess capital to pay out dividends to shareholders, but some of the blue chip names, right? Some companies that have been around for years on top of years on top of years, they're not in the growth phase anymore, right? They're in the maturity phase of their business cycle, right? They have a lot of excess capital that they pay to shareholders in the form of dividends to really make the shareholders happy because a lot of people in terms of dividend investors, they want a consistent stream of cash flow, right? Some of these companies pay 2% annually in terms of dividends, some pay 3%, some pay 4%, some pay upwards of 6% to 7% annually, right? And when you get these dividends, you have a couple of options. You can either reinvest them into the company by more shares of stock and accumulate even more interest, more dividends over time, which is known as compound interest, right? Or you can just simply invest, you know, in these companies and collect dividends monthly, quarterly, and just simply live off of them, right? You don't necessarily have to reinvest those dividends. So why am I personally looking to buy some dividends here, buy some dividend aristocrat companies or let's say buy more, right? Because I already have some, but let's say why am I looking to buy more? Well, I have this sheet of paper right here and you're going to see a screenshot right on the screen of the S&P 500 dividend aristocrats compared to the S&P 500 in total over the past couple of years in this specific range are seeing 27 years. So take a look at recessionary periods that we do have here, right? From 2000 to 2002, the dividend aristocrats in 2000, the year 2000, gave a total return of 10.1% compared to negative 9.1% for the S&P 500. In 2001, dividend aristocrats gave a 10.8% return compared to the negative 11.9% return in terms of the S&P 500. And then the following year, the S&P lost 22% and these dividend aristocrat companies as a whole lost 9.9%. Let's fast forward a couple of years later to the great recession known as the time period between roughly 2007 and 2009. We can see here in 2007, okay, the dividend aristocrats lost 2.1% of their value in terms of return, right? Not of their value but in terms of return, right? And the S&P lost or gained rather 5.5%. But if we're looking at 2008, which was the big, big crash in the stock market, dividend aristocrats lost 21.9% versus 37% by the S&P 500. So if you guys haven't really grasped onto this, during recessionary periods, during the economic cycle where jobs are being lost, a lot of people are unemployed, the stock market's going down when the stock market is quote-unquote crashing, right? These dividend investments, these dividend aristocrat companies tend to hold up better than the overall S&P 500. So you maybe ask yourself, Stas, you think there's a recession coming? Is that why you are putting money into dividend aristocrat companies? I think there's a recession on the horizon. I'm not going to be here saying recession in 2020, 100% recession at towards the end of 2019. I'm just saying, in my personal belief, right, do your own research that we're going to have a recession here, whether it's in the next year, in the next two, in the next three years. And I feel comfortable buying companies, undervalued companies right now in my personal opinion. And if you guys want me to make a video on two companies that I'm currently buying that are dividend aristocrats, let me know down below in the comment section. I feel comfortable investing in these companies that are going to provide me cash flow through a period of time where we could potentially see a big crash and where growth stocks and the overall S&P historically, right, from the charts that we've seen, have done worse than these dividend aristocrats. I just feel comfortable putting my money into aristocrats. And this kind of gives a portfolio a bit more diversity, right? Because if you're invested in growth stocks, that's great, right? But during recessionary periods, those typically get hit harder and they don't provide a cash flow dividend where it can kind of weather the storm during a recession, right? Like for example, Procter & Gamble, right, Johnson & Johnson, these are companies that provide cash flow during a recession where you can take advantage of compound interest and then buy even more of those shares at a dip price so you can get in at an even better dividend yield and at a better average cost for the long term if your goal is to invest for passive income, to invest for cash flow in the long run, right? So the gist of this video, guys, is I am personally investing in a couple of dividend aristocrat companies right now to weather the storm of my portfolio because I'm more of a growth and a value investor in terms of my long-term investment strategy. There's a mix in there and I don't want to get absolutely crushed on the growth side in the next recession and I also want to have some cash flow where I can, you know, take the two, three, four, five percent yields, buy more stock or either maybe use it as income, right? But at this point in my life, I am looking to invest most of the returns in terms of dividends back into the companies to provide an even bigger return in years to come through compound interest. And this strategy, in my opinion, it just weathers the storm a bit and provides cash flow during tough times. That's the whole idea here, guys, because one more point to leave you all off with, I almost forgot to mention this, these dividend aristocrat companies, they've raised their dividend through the recessionary time period. So they've been there, they have the cash, they understand how to get in and out of recessions, right? How to survive it while still raising the dividend and providing that cash flow for investors and shareholders out there, which makes me super, super comfortable holding them. Although there's great likelihood that they're going to go down in price, but one outlier is McDonald's, guys. I'll throw a big screenshot here during the 08 crash. McDonald's literally, I think it might have went up, it definitely didn't go down. It might have just stayed the same, right, in terms of price compared to all these other companies that have gotten absolutely slaughtered. So that's one that actually didn't even go down during the recession and provided a nice steady cash flow through dividends. That's just one example, guys. So if you enjoyed this video, feel free to go down below and hit that like button. It really supports me and supports the channel in general. Drop a comment down below. Let me know what you guys think about this. I would love to know your opinion. And if you're not already subscribed to the channel, hit that red button, subscribe, hit that notification bell as well so you're notified every single time that I do make a video. I'll catch you guys in the next video. I appreciate every single one of you guys taking your time to watch this. It means a lot. Peace out.