I start every day with a long walk.

We live in a sprawling community that backs up to an enormous swamp ad nature preserve, so I see an incredible amount of wildlife.

Deer, alligators, snakes, and an astonishing array of birds are visible pretty much every day.

Although I haven’t seen one yet, both neighbors have spotted both bears and panthers at night on my street.

I was never much of a tree hugger, but I have gained a much deeper appreciation of nature since moving to Florida.

The other day I saw something incredibly unusual that is also a perfect metaphor for investing in the markets…

Everyone on Wall Street likes to keep track of dividend increases.

Dividend ETFs and mutual funds have been the flavor of the last 30 years.

It does make sense as companies that return cash to shareholders in the form of dividends, and stock buybacks generally outperform the indexes over time.

While that is all good and wonderful, I’m not looking to beat the indexes by a little bit.

I’m far more interested in crushing the indexes like Mike Trout crushes a hanging curveball.

While I’ve found a few ways to do that and talk about them, often one of the best ways to do that is to learn to think like a private equity or distressed securities investor.

For that reason, while dividend hikes are nice, I get excited by companies that eliminate their dividends…