Seeking Alpha Seeking Alpha Portfolio App for iPad  As a general
rule, I am mostly interested in trying to purchase undervalued
securities. This is straightforward enough: the price we pay for
something is a great determinant of our future returns, and the
notion of buying at low prices to increase a margin of safety
was the grand thesis that underscored almost all of the late
Benjamin Graham's work. But what I want to talk about today are
the dividend-paying companies that are of such quality that it
is worth paying a reasonable price for: in essence, the types of
companies where the objective is to "not overpay" instead of
"buy cheap."  In terms of income, there are three qualities that
I evaluate on the dividend side of the investment: the level of
the current dividend yield at prevailing market prices
(generally juxtaposed against the firm's total profits on an
annualized basis), the safety of the current dividend payout,
and the projected growth rate of the dividend over my
contemplated holding period.