Java Fans May Be Drinking All Their Profits

If you think your coffee money is just chump change, think again.

According to figures from WestCore Funds of Denver, a $2.50-per-day habit could induce a healthy financial buzz if that money was saved.

Assuming 20 working days a month, your java jag costs $50. Over 10 years, that money could grow to more than $9,000 earning a fairly conservative return of 8 percent.

The key is discipline, regularity, dollar-cost averaging and a mutual fund family with low minimum investments and few or low charges.

Bottoms up!

Contrarians ignore high-fliers

Like to chase high-tech, high-flying stocks? Here’s contrarian advice: “Buying strong companies beaten up by a fickle market is the safest, most profitable way to invest,” says Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Adviser.

“Consider stocks down 50 percent or so. Examples: Borders Group (books); Schlumberger Ltd. (oil services); Service Corp. International (chain of funeral homes); Silicon Valley Group (semiconductors) and Deere & Co. (farm equipment).”

Martin Sosnoff writes in Forbes: “When the market seems priced for perfection, look for imperfection. Buy some `also rans,’ stocks way off their highs, like Warner Lambert Co., Dell Computer Corp., Intel Corp. and Philip Morris Cos.”

S&P fingers dividend champs

Standard & Poor’s Investment Monthly has just published a list of 11 stocks rated B or better that have at least doubled their dividend payouts in the past 10 years and have yields of at least 2.6 percent - or twice the S&P 500 average.

Best of the bunch: CMS Energy Corp. (CMS), which owns and runs power plants around the world; PPG Industries Inc. (PPG), construction and manufacturing products, at a P/E of 12; Union Planters Corp. (UPC), Memphis-based bank; J.C. Penney Inc. (JCP), retailer, with a yield of 5.2 percent; and, perhaps best of all, Wallace Computer Services Inc. (WCS), business forms, with a 3 percent dividend that has been growing at 15 percent annually and a P/E of 13.