Cheque-mate: How biggest player in personal cheques market reinvented itself + MORE Jul 5th

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How to get started with dividend investing?  I get this question often from readers.
A few months ago I wrote this post about getting started with dividend stocks.  In reading that post you’ll come to realize that a company’s assets and earnings can be managed in several ways:

Management can decide to reinvest earnings and grow the business.
Management can decide to buy back shares so each remaining share can earn a higher proportion of profits.
Management can decide to pay down debt.
Management can decide to pay some of their earnings to shareholders in the form of dividends.

The latter is preferred to me as someone who aspires to, for now, live off the dividend and distribution income paid from our investments.  The way I see it, dividends are very tangible while capital appreciation is not.  Although both provide an expectation for investors’ returns companies that pay a consistent dividend are typically demonstrating good financial health even though future dividends are never guaranteed…

HOUSTON – A Texas man used social media to promote his gun store, posting politically charged messages that criticized the president and promoted Second Amendment rights.
But after losing ownership of his suburban Houston store in bankruptcy, Jeremy Alcede spent nearly seven weeks in jail for refusing a federal judge’s order to share with the new owner the passwords of the business’ Facebook and Twitter accounts, which the judge had declared property.
“It’s all about silencing my voice,” said Alcede, who was released in May after turning over the information. “… Any 3-year-old can look at this and tell this is my Facebook account and not the company’s.”
Alcede’s ultimately failed stand charts new territory in awarding property in bankruptcy proceedings and points to the growing importance of social media accounts as business assets. Legal experts say it also provides a lesson for all business owners who are active on social media…

CBC.caGreek bailout referendum: 'No' side celebrates decisive winCBC.caGreeks voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject terms of a bailout, risking financial ruin in a show of defiance that could splinter Europe. Follow our liveblog for breaking news from Greece. With nearly half of the votes counted, official figures …and more »

Brokerages and fund managers vowed to buy massive amounts of stocks, helped by China’s state-backed margin finance company that in turn would be aided by a direct line of liquidity from the central bank

TORONTO – Ten years ago, Toronto-based DH Corp. made virtually all of its money by printing cheques.
But over the past decade, the company once known as Davis + Henderson Corp. (TSX:DH) has transformed itself into a technology business serving financial institutions, with cheques now comprising only 20 per cent of its revenue.
“It’s long been predicted that cheque usage will decline,” Duncan Hannay, president of the company’s Canadian division, said in an interview.
“I think that was the thing that really prompted the company to look at its future and assess how it could better position itself with its banking clients — both in Canada and potentially globally, to diversify its revenue.”
With the emergence of new digital forms of payment such as email money transfers, use of paper cheques has been steadily on the decline, shrinking by roughly five per cent a year, according to the Canadian Bankers Association.
While personal cheques have been losing their popularity by high single digit percentages annually, business cheques have fared somewhat better, with usage slipping by low single digits…