About John Kingham

Dear Fellow Investor,

Welcome to the UK Dividend Stocks website, which has been called "an oasis of sanity in a crazy financial world".

On this page, you'll find a brief overview of how I invest, who I am and why this website exists. 

How I invest

I would describe myself as a defensive dividend investor who broadly follows Benjamin Graham's guidelines for defensive investors, which he wrote in the 1940s:

The selection of common stocks for the portfolio of the defensive investor is a relatively simple matter. Here we would suggest:

(1) There should be adequate though not excessive diversification. This might mean a minimum of ten different issues and a maximum of about thirty.

(2) Each company selected should be large, prominent, and conservatively financed. Indefinite as these adjectives must be, their general sense is clear.

(3) Each company should have a long record of continuous dividend payments.

(4) The price paid for each should be reasonable in relation to its average earnings for the last five years or longer. We would recommend a price not to exceed twenty times such earnings.

(5) The stock of a growing company, if purchasable at a suitable price, is obviously preferrable to others. We should recommend payment of a premium for the growth potential not to exceed about 50 percent of the value determined without it.

There is a lot of detail missing from those five points, but they still capture the spirit of what I'm trying to do.

For a more detailed overview of my dividend investing strategy, please read this blog post:

• A 5-Step Approach to Investing in Dividend Stocks

My background

I have been writing about investing since 2008, initially on the now-mothballed UK Value Investor website and more recently on this website, which I set up in 2021.

I write regular blog posts on the UK Dividend Stocks Blog, I publish the monthly UK Dividend Stocks Newsletter and my first book, The Defensive Value Investor, was published by Harriman House in 2015.

I occasionally write for other publications, primarily The Property Chronicle, and for several years, I wrote the Dividend Hunter column for Master Investor Magazine. 

As for relevant education, I hold the Investment Management Certificate issued by CFA UK.

Before I became a full-time investor, writer and author, I worked in the insurance industry as a software analyst. I started investing in 1995, and it grew into a serious hobby that eventually became my career. 

Why this website exists

I started writing about investing in 2008 for two reasons:

(1) There was a lack of sensible publications covering UK stocks. Most of what was out there was either fluff or hype, written to attract eyeballs for advertisers rather than to help readers achieve their long-term financial goals by becoming better investors.

(2) To exchange ideas and feedback with other investors so that they could help me improve as much as I could help them improve.

These remain the purpose of this website, and I hope that comes through in every blog post and every issue of the monthly newsletter.

If you have any questions, please send them to me via the Contact Page.

Good luck with your investment journey,

John Kingham