Buy of Kraft Food and Partial Sell of LNC Postion

Purely as a dividend play, with some hope of modest appreciation over the course of the next two years, I added 100 shares of Kraft Foods, KFT, a new position for me, filled at 26.52.  The dividend yield is close to 4.5% at that price with a payout ratio near 50%.  Both S & P and Morningstar give Kraft five stars.  I view this one as relatively safe for a stock, in that I would be surprised if the price broke 20 during the current economic downturn and I hoping to sell it at around 35 in 1 to 2 years, aiming for a 15% total return including the dividend.  S & P has a 37 target on it.  I think that is optimistic and I would be pleased to see 35 after a year.  It is the kind of selection that I am likely to make during uncertain economic times.  On the downside, I would anticipate consumers are trading down from brand name products in the current economic climate. The current estimate for 2009 earnings is $2.02KFT: Analyst Estimates for KRAFT FOODS INC - Yahoo! Finance

If that holds, my purchase would be at a reasonable 13 times next year's earnings.  Price to sales is less than 1. KFT: Key Statistics for KRAFT FOODS INC - Yahoo! Finance

  

For no particular reason, I sold my highest cost shares of Lincoln National (LNC)  at 19 this afternoon, for a very small profit, and I am going to keep the small number of shares purchased a few weeks ago at $6.45 primarily for the dividend, which is over 12% at that cost.      Time to Fire my Head Trader: He Bought LNC  I guess that I just feel better owning 100 of Kraft. 

I heard Harvey Pitt say last night that the SEC can not catch every crook in response to a question about Madoff.  The SEC received several warnings about Madoff and refused to perform an adequate investigation for reasons that are not yet clear.S.E.C. Says It Missed Signals on Madoff Fraud Case - NYTimes.com SEC Ignored Madoff Fraud Warnings, Faces Grilling - FOXNews.com Transition TrackerUnlikely Player Pulled Into Madoff Swirl - NYTimes.com 

After listening to Pitt, I wanted to ask him to name the ones that the SEC had caught and why they would not come down like a ton of bricks after receiving legitimate warnings about Madoff's operation.

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