[technologic]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I certainly wouldn't exclude companies that don't plan on paying dividends, and are upfront about it. I don't think he was saying those stocks should be avoided based only on that.

But from the wording he uses, it seems that he's saying some companies that promised to pay dividends will sometimes back out and not pay them when they get into some financial trouble. As opposed to a company that never promised to pay them. And as opposed to a company that has a record of paying them even when they were in trouble.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think he's talking about if a stock has a regularly scheduled dividend payment per quarter and sticks to that consistently, then it's solid in the case that it's not taking overaggressive bets on things that could go wrong (with "one off" losses, "unexpected market conditions", etc.)