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How important are dividends to a stock investors profits? Speaking before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) on October 15, 2007, investing guru John Bogle laid out the case: Over the past 81 years reinvested dividend income accounted for approximately 95 percent of the compound long-term return earned by the companies in the S&P 500. These stunning figures would seem to demand that mutual funds highlight the importance of dividend income. So in other words, dividends are pretty important! Of course, right now the average stock on the S&P 500 is only paying about a 2% dividend yield, which isnt a lot. If you want to do better than that, though, the REIT sector is a great place to begin your search for high-yield dividend stocks. REITs are companies that acquire, own, operate, and manage real estate portfolios, usually some combination of residential or commercial real properties, or their associated mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities. Tax law requires that these companies return profits directly to shareholders, and most of them choose dividends as their vehicle of choice for compliance, resulting in frequent high dividend yields across the sector. The slowly ebbing COVID pandemic was hard on real estate managers, as tenants had trouble making rents and owners had trouble leasing vacant space. However, BTIG analyst Tim Hayes believes there are reasons to stay bullish on CRE properties specifically. "While we recognize the headwinds to commercial real estate (CRE) fundamentals and the potential risk to equity/earnings power, we believe there are several reasons to be constructive, especially with the sector trading at a discount to historical levels and offering attractive dividend yields at wide spreads to benchmark rates," Hayes commented. Against this backdrop, weve opened up the TipRanks database to get the latest stats on Hayes CRE choices. These are stocks that the analyst initiated Buy ratings on, pointing out their high dividend yield. We are talking about at least 9% here. Ares Commercial Real Estate (ACRE) The first dividend pick we are looking at is Ares Commercial Real Estate, a company focused on the commercial real estate mortgage sector. Ares boasts a diversified portfolio featuring office space, apartments, hotels, and mixed-use properties mainly across the Southeast and West. The company has over $2 billion invested in 49 separate loans, 95% of which are senior mortgage loans. At the end of October, the company released 3Q20 earnings (the last reported quarter), showing $22.4 million in total revenue, for a 13% year-over-year gain. The 45-cents earnings per common share was up 40% since the prior year. Furthermore, Ares closed a $667 million commercial real estate collateralized loan obligation, with firmed up funding on 23 senior loans. On the dividend front, Ares declared in December its 4Q20 dividend. The payment, at 33 cents per common share, was paid out on January 15 and is fully covered by current income levels. At current rates, the dividend annualizes to $1.32 and gives an impressive yield of 10.50%. Among the bulls is Hayes, who wrote: We believe shares of ACRE are unfairly discounted relative to other commercial mREITs given strong Ares sponsorship, a very healthy balance sheet, and limited exposure to at-risk assets. In his view, this leaves the company well positioned to face the headwinds from COVID-19. In line with these comments, Hayes rates ACRE a Buy, and his $13.50 price target implies a 10% upside from current levels. (To watch Hayes track record, click here) Only one other analyst has posted a recent ACRE review, also rating the stock a Buy, which makes the analyst consensus here a Moderate Buy. Shares are priced at $12.28, and their $12.75 average price target suggests room for modest ~4% growth. (See ACRE stock analysis on TipRanks) KKR Real Estate Finance Trust (KREF) Next up we have KKR, which operates in the commercial real estate sector, with almost half of its holdings in the states of New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The company both owns and finances commercial properties; 83% of its activities are with apartment dwellings and office spaces in desirable urban locations. KKRs quality can be seen in the companys quarterly results. The liquidity position was strong KKR reported $700.6 million available at the end of 3Q20, the last quarter reported. The 56-cent EPS was up 7% sequentially, and 36% year-over-year. Further evidence of KKRs sound position came at the beginning of January, when the announced it had closed 7 new commercial loans in Q4, totaling $565.4 million. This level of activity is a clear sign that KKR is recovering from the pandemic-related economic turndown. The solid foundation put the company in position to continue its dividend which has been kept reliable for four years now. The most recent declaration, made in December, was for a 43-cent per common share dividend that was paid out in mid-January. That rate gives an annual payment of $1.72 per common share, and a robust yield of 9.7%. Covering KREF, Hayes is most impressed by the companys move back toward proactive loan origination, saying, We view 4Q20 origination activity to be in line with pre-pandemic production, and demonstrates a shift from defense to offense as transaction activity has picked up and the capital markets remain accommodative. We expect increased capital deployment to support earnings power and dividend coverage, and could potentially warrant an increase in the dividend as the macroeconomic outlook improves. To this end, Hayes gives KREF a Buy and sets a $19.50 price target that indicates ~6% growth from current levels. (To watch Hayes track record, click here) Wall Street has been keeping quiet on all things KREF, and the only other recent review also recommends a Buy. Put together, the stock has a Moderate Buy consensus rating. Meanwhile, the average price target stands at 19.26 and implies a modest ~5% upside. (See KREF stock analysis on TipRanks) Starwood Property Trust (STWD) For the third stock on Hayes list of picks, we turn to Starwood, a commercial mortgage REIT with a varied portfolio of first mortgages and mezzanine loans, in the $50 million to $500 million range. The company operates in the US and Europe, boasts a $5.9 billion market cap, and has offices in New York, London, and San Francisco. Starwoods high-end portfolio has brought it solid earnings, even during the corona recession of 2020. The company recorded $152 million in GAAP earnings for 3Q20, coming out to 53 cents per share, for gains of 8% sequentially and 6% year-over-year. With that in the background, we can note the companys dividend, which has been held steady at 48 cents per share for over two years. The last declaration was made in December, and the dividend was paid out on January 15. At the current rate, it annualizes to $1.92 and the yield is 9.23%. Once again, were looking at a stock that Hayes recommends to Buy. We view STWD to be one of the few blue chips in the commercial mREIT sector given its size, liquidity, best-in-class management team, strong balance sheet, and diversified investment platform which has consistently generated stronger ROEs than peers. To that end, STWD is one of few commercial mREITs that neither restructured its liabilities with expensive rescue capital nor cut its dividend since the onset of COVID-19, Hayes opined. Overall, there is little action on the Street heading STWD's way right now, with only one other analyst chiming in with a view on the company's prospects. An additional Buy rating means STWD qualifies as a Moderate Buy. However, the $21 average price target suggests shares will remain range bound for the foreseeable future. (See STWD stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for dividend stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

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Multiple Championship-Winning Ninth-Grader Develops State-of-the-Art Chess Guidebook to Teach Beginning Players Powerful Techniques and Strategies -...

GM Alireza Firouzja hasn't given many interviews yet, but during a live broadcast of the Opera Euro Rapid tournament he opened up about a wide range of topics such as his experience in 2020, being respected as a top player, playing against GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Hikaru Nakamura, social media, and the future of OTB chess.

For about an hour, Firouzja appeared as a guest alongside IM Anna Rudolf and IM Levy Rozman during their broadcast on Nakamura's Twitch channel on Sunday, the second day of the Opera Euro Rapid tournament.

The segment, quite a cheerful and insightful interview, was separately uploaded to Nakamura's YouTube channel. Here you can watch it in full, and below you'll find a selection of quotes, sometimes slightly corrected for English grammar.

Still just 17 years old, Firouzja has been racing up the rankings and is now playing for first place in all the events he is participating in.As the youngest player in the world rated over 2700, he will be the world number 13 in the next FIDE rating list, when the results of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament are calculated. It feels like he's been around for many, many years already.

It's mind-boggling to remember that he scored his third grandmaster norm only three years ago, at the 2018 Aeroflot Openby the way one of many tournaments that has been canceled this year due to the pandemic.

Firouzja's breakthrough tournament was the World Rapid Championship in December 2018, when he finished in an astonishing sixth place as the 169th seed. A year later, he came in second behind Carlsen.

Shortly before, in early December 2019, Firouzja stopped representing Iran and nowadays plays under the FIDE flag while living in Chartres, France, about 90 km (56 mi) southwest of Paris.

"Everything is good here, in the city we live here in France," Firouzja told Rozman and Rudolf. "It is a very big pandemic going on now so there's not much to do. We are just staying at home."

He does speak a bit of French and interestingly, he is taking French lessons online with a teacher and revealed that he continued to do so during Wijk aan Zee.

Firouzja has been somewhat lucky as it comes to over-the-board chess during the pandemic as he got to play in almost all the top tournaments that did happen: Prague (which he won), Norway Chess (second place), and Tata Steel (shared third). "I have been, I think, the most active player in top chess!" smiled Firouzja.

He added: "It's very hard to find motivation even for working on chess because there are not many tournaments. I was a bit lucky that I got over-the-board tournaments for three months. A lot of people don't even have that."

Firouzja has been very active online as well, for example in the Magnus Carlsen Tour last year and in many Titled Tuesdays and the Speed Chess Championship here on Chess.com. In many of those events, he got to play the two most successful players of 2020: Carlsen and Nakamura.

"They are two very different players," he commented on that. "Everybody knows that it is harder for me to play against Hikaru in rapid and blitz than Magnus. I have much better results against Magnus. They are very different players with very different styles and they are both very good of course in all the formats. I never played Hikaru in classical but I hope I could play him once and we will see."

Asked why, Firouzja said: "Maybe because Hikaru beat me a lot when I was a kid! That fear is still there."

Everybody knows that it is harder for me to play against Hikaru in rapid and blitz than Magnus [...] Maybe because Hikaru beat me a lot when I was a kid!

As Rozman pointed out, Firouzja is of the new generation of players who meet the absolute top GMs online, sometimes in quite a few games, before playing them over-the-board. Another example is GM Nihal Sarin.

Firouzja only needed one super-tournament to get the full respect of his colleagues at the top, because he came second there: Norway Chess, in October 2020. However, he also said that he doesn't think about these things that much: "I am thinking about improving and have fun."

But however you want to look at it, Firouzja is the biggest upcoming star at the moment, and that comes with some pressure. Or not?

"I don't think it's pressure if you don't make it as pressure," Firouzja said. "The fact that at least I have a shot is a good thing for me, I can try, so it's good. I don't feel the pressure."

Rozman and Rudolf noted that it was a bit surprising not to see Firouzja playing in the Opera Euro Rapid, not even as a wildcard. Apparently, some forces behind the scenes made that impossible for this event. "We are still talking about some agreement, we are still in negotiations," was all Firouzja could say about it.

It probably means that one of the big players in the chess market might be interested in working closely with the Iranian prodigy. In that light, it makes sense for him to start becoming active on social media as well. As of this week, you can find Firouzja on Twitter and on Instagram, alongside the Twitch channel where he streams with his brother Mohammadreza.

"I understood that social media is also very much needed," said Firouzja. "Somebody like me, I have many fans, so I have to somehow try and reach them and be in touch with them."

It was also on Twitch where Firouzja first gave his reaction on the last-round incidentin Wijk aan Zee. Speaking to Rozman and Rudolf, Firouzja repeated his point of view: "There were many reports about what happened. I was a bit angry and everybody saw what happened. The organizer was not right and the fact that they apologized was very good, of course, as I said in my stream. I am happy about the fact that they understood their mistake. That's good, I think."

Firouzja had provided similar comments a few days ago on his Twitch channel.

Tata Steel is one of the most prestigious but also the longest tournament. It runs 16 days in total, and because of the quarantine period, Firouzja and his father came to the Netherlands more than a week before the start.

As it turns out, he was not a big fan of that and he hopes to see shorter top events in the future: "We were in Wijk aan Zee for one month and it's just crazy. Norway Chess is a very good step in the right direction, I think. They make the time control [shorter] and also [it takes fewer days]. That's very good. I think each top tournament has to be only one week if you want to make it more popular. And the game has to finish after four hours, I think, maximum."

If it was up to Firouzja, more tournaments would be rapid, which is his favorite time control."I like it a lot. You can't train it, you just have to play it by feeling. I think people who are very good at blitz are also good at rapid."

Besides the second half of the Candidates Tournament, now scheduled for the second half of April, it's unclear when we'll see the next big over-the-board tournament. However, close to the end of the interview, Firouzja (perhaps somewhat prematurely) revealed that the next Norway Chess tournament is happening in May. That probably means that, virus permitting, it's then and there that we'll see him behind the (physical) board again!

Excerpt from:
Alireza Firouzja: 'I am thinking about improving and having fun' - Chess.com

The recent Tata Steel tournament was a huge success. The organizers did an outstanding job creating a mixed field of players who are known for sharp, "take no prisoners" kind of chess. Yet, in my opinion, the main reason for the success of this tournament was a general thirst for over-the-board chess. The players and fans have been waiting for a long time to play this almost forgotten form of chess.

In the past year, we got used to the never-ending stream of top tournaments with all the unintended consequences that we discussed in this article. Thanks to COVID (yes, I know how weird this phrase sounds), we managed to turn time back some 40-50 years. At that time we had just 2-3 super tournaments per year and the games played there would be analyzed for months.

There were dozens of remarkable games played in Wijk an Zee, so I won't be surprised if you missed the following one. Indeed, this seemingly uneventful draw is not exactly what chess fans are going to talk about.

Here is what GM Magnus Carlsen said about this position:

In those positions his extra pawn doesn't mean very much, my bishop is a lot better thanhis is, his pawn is blockaded and in general I should have enough activity tosecure the draw pretty comfortably and at any rate, the course of the gamedidn't prove that that was not the case.

And here is the opinion of GM Fabiano Caruana:

I thought I would have an advantage from afar but once I got there it suddenly seemed like very little. At the end I was almost worried that I started to risk things.

Yes, Carlsen managed to evaluate this position better during the game, but what really impressed me is his words "those positions". What did he mean? I think that he is referring to the following game played byJose Capablanca, that we analyzed in this article:

It looks very similar, doesn't it? Caruana's words: "At the end, I was almost worried that I started to risk things" were right on the money, since a strong player like Alexander Kevitz couldn't manage to make a draw.

I have a very strong suspicion that while Carlsen knew the above-mentioned game of Capablanca, Fabiano Caruana didn't. I could be totally wrong of course, but let's go back in time and look at the very first game that these two chess titans ever played against each other.

Here is what Caruana says about the move 11. Bxf6 in his annotations for New In Chess magazine:

"This surprised me. I hadn't expected him to give up the bishop pair without a fight."

To tell you the truth, I was shocked by this comment as I have known this idea since my childhood. "200 Open Games" by GM David Bronstein is one of my all-time favorite chess books and contains the following games:

I liked the idea of Bxf6 followed by h2-h4 so much that I played it myself in 1985 against late GM Vladimir Malaniuk in one of the tournaments in my home city of Tashkent. Well, at that time Malaniuk was one of the strongest Soviet masters, so you can easily guess the result of the game.

I can totally understand that Caruana didn't read "200 Open Games", but how about the following modern classic from the creative GM Alexander Morozevich?

Since you already know Bronstein's games, it shouldn't come as a surprise that after Bxf6, Carlsen played h2-h4:

Here is Fabiano's comment after 11.Bxf6:

"A move that threw me off balance. I didn't realize he could play this way! Soon, I started to feel uncomfortable, because I couldn't see how to counter his attack."

That was another puzzling comment. While it is easy to understand that Caruana didn't see two lesser-known Bronstein games and he somehow missed Morozevich's gem, but for god's sake, Wilhelm Steinitz played exactly this idea in two of his world championship games and GM Garry Kasparov has annotated both of them in the first volume of "My Great Predecessors" just like Romanovsky did some 70 years ago in his classical book "Chess Middlegame."

If you, my dear readers, think that I am picking on Fabiano Caruana, then you are totally wrong. First of all, such an attempt would be quite comical since he is a much stronger chess player than I am. Secondly, you cannot argue with success, so if Caruana, the world's #2 player reads this article and says the infamous "OK boomer", I wouldn't be surprised since he has all the right to do so.

The goal of the article is totally different. When I attended the famous Botvinnik-Kasparov school as a child, one of the strongest impressions was the way the Patriarch analyzed our games. He would look at the position, silently listening to our comments, and say something like, "A similar position happened in the Trade Union championship of 1931 in the game Chekhover vs Budo. Look at the game, and you'll see how to play this kind of the position!" Since then it was a chess axiom to me that you cannot be a strong chess player without a firm knowledge of the classical heritage.

Now let's see what happened in the game that we just analyzed. Caruana was not familiar with any of the classical ideas known for over 100 years, got himself in an uncomfortable position (as he admitted himself), and he didn't really see how to counter White's attack... and what's the result of such a tough start in the game versus the world's #1 player? Caruana should have won the game if not for a mistake on move 40!

We are witnessing a true chess revolution, where the old values are mercilessly replaced by a new one: the almighty computer. Move over Steinitz and Capablanca: there is a new sheriff in town. AlphaZero can attack better than GM Mikhail Tal and plays endgames more accurately than GM Anatoly Karpov. Am I happy about all of these changes? Of course not! But as I mentioned in this article, whether we like it or not, chess is quickly turning into anesport and we all need to adapt.

Originally posted here:
Fabiano Caruana And The Chess Revolution - Chess.com

Grandmaster Susan Polgar watches on as Grandmaster Yuniesky Quesada (left), from Cuba, and Grandmaster Emilio Cordova, from Peru, work on their chess skills in this snapshot of pre-pandemic training. Quesada and Cordova are members of the Webster University chess team, which has been ranked number one in Division 1 College Chess since its inception.| photo courtesy of Webster University

Since its inception in August 2012, the Webster University chess team has ranked number one in Division I college chess. Earlier this year, the team won the 2021 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, the foremost college chess tournament in the Americas.

Though the team is no stranger to that competition of the nine years theyve entered, theyve won eight 2021 presented its own challenges. With the coronavirus pandemic still raging across the country, this years training and tournament were conducted entirely online.

While online chess is by no means a new concept, for many members of the Webster University chess team, it wasnt the norm.

Training online is something I have been quite used to for a long time, since I coach chess and most of my students are online, said player Alex Lenderman. However, playing online on a regular basis has definitely become something of a novel experience for me in 2020. By the time I played Pan-American, however, I was fully comfortable with it.

Like his teammates, Lenderman started playing chess before age 10. He became a Grandmaster, the highest title one can achieve in chess apart from World Champion, at age 20. All four members of the Webster University A Team have achieved Grandmaster, as have all members of the B Team, which took third place in the 2021 competition.

Lenderman attributes his skill to learning chess at an early age.

I think just like with learning a language, it is important to start chess young since there are many tactical patterns that become second nature as an adult if you have learned them as a child, he said.

Alex Lenderman, a member of the Webster University chess team, became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 20.| photo courtesy of Webster University

A Big Draw

Since 2021, the Webster University chess team and its players have earned two world championships, multiple Olympiad gold medals, five world open championships and 55 national titles. Its constant success is no doubt in part due to the instruction of Grandmaster Susan Polgar.

Polgar started the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) at Texas Tech University in 2007, moving it to Webster University in 2012. A native Hungarian turned American who was once the top-ranked female chess player in the world, Polgar was the third woman in history to achieve the rank of Grandmaster in 1991. Today, she is one of only 37 women to hold the title.

Polgars institute has attracted chess talent from all over the world. Websters chess team currently hosts students from Cuba, Hungary, Armenia and Peru, among other countries.

Most (players) come specifically to join us because of the chess program. They know they will get a great education and also have the opportunity to work with the team and improve their chess, said Polgar. And for the social aspect, theyll immediately have a group of people theyll have a mutual interest with.

According to Polgar, chess training is a complex affair. Students access a database of over 13 million games to study the recent games of their opponents. In addition to preparing for likely opening moves, players practice from certain positions to make better decisions. Students also work to eliminate their own weaknesses in pattern recognition, creativity, calculations and playing complete games.

Polgars teaching approach focuses on the whole student, making sure they are mentally, physically and academically looked after to keep them balanced.

I try to create an atmosphere for students in the program that is positive and encouraging for each other. I believe in a holistic approach, not just about the Xs and Os of the game, said Polgar. Its especially important when every player is not from St. Louis, which means theyre far away from their families.

Webster Universitys chess team took first place in the recent annual 2021 Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championships. The Pan-Am Tournament, held annually as the foremost intercollegiate chess championship in the Americas, featured 59 teams competing online. | photo courtesy of Webster University

Looking to the Future

Though training through Zoom is drastically different, Polgar said it has opened some eyes to the positive side of virtual chess.

The big events used to be held in person, but casually a lot of people used to play online, so it only really changed the professional players lives in that they no longer were traveling for matches because of the pandemic, said Polgar. Professional chess has moved largely online in the last year. It represents cost savings and its convenient for the sponsors. You dont have to put players up in hotels for two weeks. It has a lot of benefits.

One negative side, said Polgar, is that online games must be verified to confirm neither player has received outside help via an online chess engine. Algorithms flag potentially suspicious moves and a panel of chess experts must determine whether or not cheating has occurred. It took several weeks to verify the results of this years Pan-Am competition.

Whether online or in person, Polgar said her students intend to continue playing chess after graduation. As technology marches on and the world develops, so too do the opportunities for a career in chess.

Some of them are considering a professional career as a chess player. Many of them will end up having careers in their field of study. Some will try to do a hybrid to stay in chess, but more as a promoter or teacher or entertainer or commentator, said Polgar. Over the past decade, a lot of new doors have opened to chess players in addition to being a professional player. There are new positions that did not exist a decade ago.

To learn more about SPICE or the Webster University chess team, visit https://www.webster.edu/spice.

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Chess In The COVID Era | Webster Kirkwood Times | timesnewspapers.com - Webster-Kirkwood Times, Inc.

Warriors point-forward Draymond Green is considered to be one of the smartest basketball players in the NBA, but on Monday night against the San Antonio Spurs he was a few too many light-years ahead of the competition.

It was a back-and-forth affair in San Antonio, with lead changes throughout. A three-pointer by Spurs guard Dejounte Murray who had 27 points, eight rebounds and eight steals put the home team up 101-97 with 12.6 seconds remaining. Dubs star Steph Curry (game-high 32 points) nailed a triple a couple seconds later to lessen the deficit to a single point. The Spurs hit two free throws, and the Dubs got the ball back in the frontcourt down 103-100 with 8.7 seconds left.

Everyoneknew where the Warriorswantedto get the ball, but the inbounds instead went to Green, an 18.9% three-point shooter this season. Green was anticipating a San Antonio foul, a common tactic in a three-point game to prevent the team that's losing from tying things up with one basket. The Spurs, however, (wisely) had no interest in hacking at Green when they could take their chances with him chucking a jumper that has roughly the same success rate as Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer recording a hit during a National League game.

The result: a nothing-but-backboard line-drive heave from almost halfcourt.

Ultimately this is a funny, unfortunate play, and not the reason the Warriors lost. Green was mostly excellent. As coach Steve Kerr noted, Golden State's 20 turnovers were far more of an issue. Plus, Kerr told reporters, "The Spurs generally do not foul in those situations. Probably my fault for not informing the team."

So there you go. Green will have to live this one down, and will almost certainly take a deserved ribbing from teammates. But it doesn't sound like anyone in the organization is too upset nor should they be.

Read more:
Draymond Green unsuccessfully attempts 5D chess move in closing seconds of Warriors loss to Spurs - SF Gate