The best way to describe yesterday’s market is to liken it to hitting a major air pocket when flying. As we all know, they are not fun and they certainly can shake your sense of security. Market continues its slide this morning, even on the heels of a decent jobs report.

To put things in perspective, the Dow is now 20% off its highs and 63% above the low. This is a good time to remind ourselves that stocks do not move up in a straight line. We do not suggest that we can predict the market with any accuracy. Market timing is often a losing game. What we do is look for high quality dividend paying companies that have the ability to increase the dividend over time. We are using today as a buying opportunity for those stocks we like for the long term. In particular, we are adding to names like IBM, INTC, CVX, DOW.