Zecco recently sent me an email with an update on improvements to their website. My favorite update is the stock screener. Now you can perform your own stock screens using some basic filters. Zecco also announced in November that it has secured $25 million in new funding from a number of current and new investors. I feel confident in the long term success of the Zecco brokerage model.

Here is the letter:

Dear Investor,

Thank you for being a loyal Zecco Trading customer. In the spirit of the holiday season, we've been working hard to deliver you new features to welcome the new year. We've been reading your list of requests (and checking it twice), and are happy to present our Top 10 latest product enhancements!

Overall Website Experience

1. New Navigation Now it's easier to find your way around the site, with drop-down menus and left-hand side navigation.
2. Site Search Now you can easily find just about anything on Zecco.com using the custom Google search in the top bar. Try it, and get to where you want to be faster.
3. Faster Load Time Improved architecture offers you faster load times.

Trading Center

4. Trading Ticket The ticket is always on top of each trading center page for convenient order entry.
5. Performance and Tax Planning Get potent performance tracking and tax planning features, powered by GainsKeeper. Free trial (excluding Schedule D) until end of January 2008. After that, sign up for a 6-month subscription at $24.99 to access all features.
6. Complex Options At a price of only $4.50 per leg, $.50 per contract, you can execute almost any options strategy--from the most conservative to the most sophisticated--including spreads, butterflies, condors, and more.

Quotes & Research

7. Stock Screener Scan a vast pool of stocks by setting your parameters just the way you want.
8. Options Analytics Access a rich set of tools for sophisticated options traders: volatility chains, a profit & loss calculator, and a probability calculator.

ZeccoShare

9. Performance Scanner Quickly find out who the ZeccoShare top performers are. Choose one of the preset filters, or use the nifty sliders to refine your search. Who's on top in your category? Find out now!
10. Activity Feed Get an instant snapshot of your friends' and groups' latest ZeccoShare activities and trades, right on your profile page. Or check out someone new's profile page for that matter.

Please continue to send us your feedback so we know how to better serve your investing needs.
Happy holidays!

Frank O'Connor
Director of Brokerage Products
Zecco Trading, Inc.

At Zecco Trading, you get 10 free online stock trades each month with $2,500 or more. Otherwise, it's only $4.50 per stock trade.

It is good to see some people other than me are looking at banks. Jessica Silver-Greenberg from BusinessWeek talks to analysts and portfolio managers from financial funds to find stocks they like.

Finding Bargains in Battered Banks The credit crunch won't last forever, and, for now, some players are paying handsome dividends

The bad news in banking keeps coming: Writedowns are piling up, and recession talk continues. But digging through the mortgage mess may prove fruitful. Says Chris Fortune, a T. Rowe Price (TROW) analyst: "Investors are going to want to buy at the darkest days."


First Horizon's dividend (FHN) isn't in peril, says Fortune. The regional bank's earnings are in a slump. But investors, who are collecting a 9.2% yield, get paid to wait for a turnaround. It's the same story with Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) at 6.3%. With a new management team, it's poised for growth. Bank of America's (BAC) 5.8% payout looks solid, too, especially considering earnings should rise 30% to 35% next year, says Georges Yared, chief investment strategist for Yared Investment Research.

The Div Guy owns shares of BAC at the time of this post.

I know these articles come out in droves at the end of the year but I like to look for other ideas for new investments. It is also nice to see if some of my picks are listed to confirm my ideas as well. Here is an article by Michael Brush with MSN Money. 6 experts' stock picks for 2008

Given the potentially dim prospects for the U.S. economy and stocks, it's best to position yourself for international exposure. But relax -- you don't have to buy exotic companies on faraway stock exchanges. Good ol' McDonald's (MCD, news, msgs) and General Electric (GE, news, msgs) should do the trick because they make so much of their money in other countries.

Global Investing Editor Vivian Lewis, who's also a past champ of MSN Money's Strategy Lab stock-picking game, cautions investors to avoid China plays, since that economy and many Chinese stocks simply look too hot right now. She's also wary of companies that compete with U.S. exporters because the cheap dollar makes exporters' goods less expensive elsewhere in the world.

Instead, Lewis favors Barclays (BCS, news, msgs), which has created a money machine by producing a large number of fee-generating exchange-traded funds. The bank is also expanding into emerging markets, and its stock carries a 6% dividend yield. Insiders are "buying like crazy," another bullish sign for Lewis.

The Div Guy owns shares of GE, XOM and BCS at the time of this post.

I have been reading The Little Book of Value Investing by Christopher H. Browne. I plan on writing a review of the book on Friday. In Chapter Ten, Mr. Browne recommends looking at what other respected value fund managers are investing in to get additional investment ideas. A new fund his firm manages is the Tweedy Browne Worldwide High Dividend Yield Value Fund. This is a fund from his very well respected value investing firm which traces it's roots to value guru Benjamin Graham.

This fund matches very well with my investment style, so here is look at the top 20 stock holdings by percentage of the fund along with the country of the stock as of 11/30/07.

1. Unilever NV (UN) 3.52% Netherlands
2. Reynolds American (RAI) 3.36% USA
3. US Bancorp (USB) 3.09% USA
4. Eni SPA (E) 3.05% Italy
5. Korea Exchange Bank 3.00% South Korea
6. Pearson PLC (PSO) 2.88% UK
7. ING Groep NV (ING) 2.86% Netherlands
8. Mediaset SPA 2.84% Italy
9. Genuine Parts Co (GPC) 2.82% USA
10. Glaxosmithkline PLC (GSK) 2.75% UK
11. Independent News & Media 2.74% Ireland
12. Muenchener Rueckver 2.62% Germany
13. Deutsche Post AG 2.59% Germany
14. Kimberly Clark De Mexico 2.55% Mexico
15. BP PLC (BP) 2.48% UK
16. Masco Corp (MAS) 2.45% USA
17. IGM Financial Inc 2.44% Canada
18. Total SA (TOT) 2.40% France
19. Altria Group Inc (MO) 2.39% USA
20. Bank of America (BAC) 2.24% USA

The Div Guy owns shares of USB, GSK and BAC at the time of this post.

We have been without electricity since early Monday morning. I hope to have more online time to post tomorrow.

Time for my monthly review of Zecco. If you are interested in opening an account after you read my review, send me an email at thedivguy@gmail.com. Zecco of offering a referral program that would give you a free book to go along with free trades and I would get a $50 referral check. So if you are interested in signing up let me know.

About Zecco is an online broker started on July 4, 2006 that offers free stock trades and low cost option trading. Zecco says it will make money from interest income and margin spreads, as well as by charging a low fee for options trades. Zecco also hopes to attract advertisers to its financial portal site. I have been using Zecco Trading for nine months and here is a review of my experience with Zecco.

Cost I have made 77 stock trades since I have opened my account with Zecco and I have paid zero in commission. I have made 75 buys and 2 sells. I did pay $.06 in fees associated with the sell orders. Comparing the Zecco account with my Scottrade account, I have saved $539! There are no account fees for regular accounts but there is an annual charge of $30 for IRA accounts. You get 10 free trades a month with a minimum net account account equity of $2,500 and after 10 trades you are charged $4.50 per trade. Online options trades cost $4.50 plus $.50 per contract with no minimums and online mutual fund trades are $10. Here is a link to all Zecco fees.

Flexibility I love the ability to make small purchases to help create a well diversified portfolio with a limited amount of assets. I can use dividends from a couple of my large stocks to make purchases into new holdings, again allowing me to diversify my portfolio at no cost.

Ease of use You can now open an account online through a very streamlined process compared to the paper process I went through. Once you are logged into the Trading Center there is a simple to use Stock Order Entry. You enter the stock symbol, buy or sell and the number of shares. It also allows limit orders on this same entry form. Trades are processed very quickly and I have not noticed any difference in execution versus Scottrade.

Trading Tools There are limited trading tools to help with additional financial analysis of stocks. Zecco does offer Motley Fools stock rating “CAPS”.

Customer Service The customer service I have received has been very good. You can contact customer service via email or phone. I had a question on my account when I first opened the account which I submitted via email that was answered the next day. I also transferred stocks from Scottrade via ACAT and the process was very smooth and took about two weeks. I also enjoy the ability to process online ACH bank transfers to and from my Zecco account.

Community Zecco offers a program called Share which is in beta testing. Zecco Share is a secure area where Zecco account holders can share trade history, make blog posts and write comments to other users. If you are a Zecco member, you can follow my trades under my user name ZEEMAN.

Overall I have to say I have been very pleased with my Zecco account and would recommend Zecco to anyone who wants to save money on stock trades. If you are skeptical, open an account and purchase as little as one share to see how it works. Give Zecco a try if you're a novice investor or a seasoned investor, you can't beat free stock trades!

My goal for dividend investing is to create a portfolio of stocks that will pay more than 4% dividend on my original investment and that will increase dividends more than the rate of inflation. Most experts say you should take out no more that 4% of your portfolio during retirement. With my portfolio, I plan to use just the dividends to fund my retirement and let the stocks increase with the market over time. So I am not focused on my yearly returns of my portfolio but am more concerned with creating a portfolio of dividend stocks that will produce an ever increasing dividend income. I am not a big fan of bonds which produce current income but have no real appreciation potential and I plan on keeping a very aggressive portfolio with a high percentage in equities well into retirement.

I have been buying stocks in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, financials and REIT's that have taken a hit and are paying above average dividends because of the low share prices. Now maybe a great time to build up a dividend portfolio of blue chip stocks with a great yield.

A couple of additional areas where I am currently invested are is pipeline companies which a steady stream of income and are able to grow their business to produce increasing revenue as well as business development companies which make investments in private or thinly-traded public companies in the form of long-term debt or equity capital, with the goal of generating capital appreciation and/or current income.

Here is a great article from Michael Sivy who is the Money Magazine editor at large. He goes over some of fundamentals of dividend investing that I have be implementing over the past few year. Here are some of the highlights: Coming out ahead when high-yield stocks plunge

Recent turmoil in the stock market may be frightening, but the sell-off could turn out to be a blessing in disguise, especially if you're in or nearing retirement and are worried about generating income from your portfolio.

That's because several key groups of equities, especially the blue-chip financials that have been taking a beating of late, are so depressed that they're offering yields not seen since the end of the bear market. At the same time, other stocks that have always paid rich dividends are becoming more attractively priced.

Over the next several months, therefore, you'll have the chance to construct a safe, diversified retirement portfolio of blue-chip stocks paying out 4 percent in dividends.

Why is this so important? If you've ever used a retirement calculator or gone to a financial planner to figure out how much you can safely withdraw from your nest egg, you know that 4 percent is a kind of magic number.

To avoid the risk of outliving your money, academic research says, you should tap only 4 percent of your portfolio in the first year of retirement, and then increase that amount to keep pace with inflation in subsequent years.

With a prudent, high-yielding equity portfolio, you won't have to worry about falling behind inflation. Nor will you have to care how the market performs, since you won't have to sell stock each year to pay the bills. You can simply live on the income your portfolio throws off.

There are other reasons to include high-yield stocks in your mix. Some may be getting hammered now - which is why their yields are so high - but in general, stocks that pay ample dividends hold up better than those that don't.

David Katz, president of Matrix Asset Advisors, says, "There are two types of high-yield stocks - those like utilities that historically pay large dividends and those that have sold off so much that they happen to have high yields at the moment."

Financial stocks fall into the latter category and could report more bad news. Plus, their historical pattern during credit crunches suggests prices could be choppy until February or March.

But keep in mind that battered stocks also offer the greatest opportunity for gains. As long-term values, Katz favors Pfizer among the depressed drug giants and Bank of America among the financials weighed down with shaky loans.

There's one last group to watch. Real estate investment trusts not only offer growth and fairly high yields, their property holdings also offer long-term protection against inflation.

The Div Guy owns shares of Pfizer and Bank of America at the time of this post.

As of the end of November our Net Worth decreased to $805,017 from $827,436. The breakout is as follows:

Retirement Accounts $406,219
Taxable Accounts $106,827
Cash $67,471
Home $205,000
Cars $16,000
Personal Property $3,500

My net worth post seems to be one of my most popular posts, so here is a summary for the month:

The stock markets decreased for the month, resulting in a decrease of our overall net worth. I made additional purchases of bank and REIT stocks this month. I love buying stocks on sale and I don't mind it when the markets go down for this month or the next few months. Since I made some additional purchases from cash into the taxable accounts I was not down much for the month on those accounts. We paid $3,400 in cash for an underground sprinkler system to be installed in our front and back yard. We had been planning to get the sprinkler system done for the past two years but finally did it. I am keeping a high level of cash that I will use to fully fund our Roth IRAs for 2008 and 2009. I also started an account to fund the replacement of my wife's care in four years. Again, we have no debt at this time.

The Dividend Income increased to $6,994 from $6,570 . The increase was from additional stock purchases as well as dividend increases from some of my stocks. The great part of buying stocks at a lower price means I get a higher dividend rate. Our dividends have increase over $1,000 from the end of July to the end of November. The dividends are reinvested but I am keeping track of the amount of income I could receive.