[dmitriid]

> At the end of the day all stock market returns come from one's of 3 things

None of which really reflect reality, and rely on basically pure speculation.

They also depend on the stock to go up up up up.

> Over the long run the speculation that you so decry ( which amounts to Multiple expansion) has a negligible impact (less than 1%).

Over the long run stocks are just speculation.

[sokoloff]

I disagree that the others are 100% pure speculation, but let's just look at the case of dividends.

Dividends (especially for companies with a long track record of paying and increasing them) are reality as far as I can tell.

[therealdrag0]

Huh? How do dividends depend on “stock to go up up up”? That’s opposite of my experience. How does EPS have anything to do with stock price? I think you have it all backwards.

Stock PICKing is speculative because we can’t predict the future. But that doesn’t mean that the future is unhinged from underlying fundamentals.

[matwood]

Dividends and EPS are real and don't rely on stock movement at all. It's the exact opposite where they drive stock movement.