All the noise and conflicting opinions about the direction of the stock market only make me more committed to the 2 for 1 strategy; we add one new stock to our 30-stock portfolio, explains Neil Macneale, editor of 2-for-1 Stock Split Newsletter.

It has been shown over and over that a simple investment plan, adhering to all the basic truths (diversity, patience, etc., etc.) and consistently applied, will serve you best in the long run.

The market is pretty crazy right now, but our buy-and-hold portfolio is almost eight percentage points ahead of the market for the year so far and has been significantly less volatile. We’re going to keep calm while everyone else is going crazy.

October saw a small uptick in split activity and I was surprised to land on Cass Information Systems (CASS) as the pick for November. The surprise comes from the fact that Cass’s split is a 6 to 5 stock dividend, which is a ratio not normally high enough to consider for inclusion in our portfolio.

However,  there are other factors that make the case. CASS is the nation's leading provider of transportation, energy, telecom and waste invoice payment and information services. Because this is a B2B service, most of us (me included) have never heard of this company.

Obscurity is a good thing. My instinct is that the market has not recognized some of the unique features of this business. CASS is a small cap stock ($836M) but it processes over $50 billion in payments annually.

Cass Commercial Bank, founded in 1906, is a fully owned subsidiary, providing sophisticated financial exchange services to the parent organization and its clients. Funded by the low cost float of these payments, CASS has no long-term debt and is well positioned to benefit from rising interest rates.

CASS pays a regularly increasing dividend of 1.57%. Volatility more or less tracks the overall market. We may be getting a little over-weighted in the financial sector but, as bank robber Willie Sutton famously said, “That’s where the money is.”

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