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Youve heard about housing bubbles, commodity bubbles and the Internet bubble.

Are we in the midst of a dividend bubble?

After the big runup in dividend stocks over the past couple of years, a few people have started to throw around the b word. They argue that with bond yields at historic lows, income-starved investors have rushed recklessly into dividend stocks, pushing prices to dangerously high levels.

Some are even comparing it albeit loosely to the subprime bond crisis. Yikes!

Blue-chip dividend stocks are not subprime bonds. But theres an argument to make that, just as investors ran blindly into subprime bonds five years ago in search of yield, theyre running blindly, carelessly into dividend stocks today, Morgan Housel, a contributor to the Motley Fool investment website, wrote recently.

Its true that dividend stocks have become enormously popular with investors, and valuations in some cases may have become stretched. Price-to-earnings multiples for many classic dividend payers pipelines, utilities and real estate investment trusts, for example have jumped and yields have plunged to the lowest in years. Theres also been an explosion of dividend-oriented products particularly exchange-traded funds to meet the growing demand for income.

But its a gigantic leap to argue that we are therefore in a dividend bubble. Were not, and heres why.

First, lets define what a bubble is.

Most investment bubbles, or manias, share several characteristics. They are usually speculative in nature, meaning that investors buy with the expectation that they will be able to flip the asset for a large capital gain. Demand is often fuelled by leverage, which magnifies price increases, which in turn draws in more buyers.

As investors become increasingly euphoric, they ignore risks and throw traditional valuation methods out the window to justify the ascent in prices. There is often talk of a new era a feeling that prices will rise forever.

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Dividend stocks are buoyant, but are they a bubble?

The Chinese Internet stocks started out 2012 with a nice rally. The four stocks discussed here produced share price gains of 20% to 40% in the first six weeks of the year. However, the price gains were in general just a break in longer term down trends as these companies either try to maintain levels of profit growth to justify the share valuations or figure out how to grow profits along with growing revenues. Traders looking for short sale prospects should check if their analysis match the reasons below why these stocks are better short candidates than buy long investments.

Youku Inc. (YOKU) Youku is the Chinese answer to YouTube or Hulu in the U.S., offering Internet television and video services. Youku was a hot IPO in December of 2010 and the shares traded as high as $70 in early 2011. Then reality set in. The company has posted net losses every quarter for the last four and is expected to lose 38 cents per share when the 2011 fourth quarter results are released, putting the loss for the full year at a loss of $1.52 per share. The Wall Street analysts have been slashing their 2012 expectations: Ninety days ago the consensus estimate for 2012 was a loss of 10 cents per share. Currently the consensus is a loss of $1.42 with the most pessimistic analyst predicting a loss of $2.27. The most optimistic analyst expects a measly 15 cents per share profit. Price rallies on Youku, like the recent runup above $20 to $24 are short selling opportunities. Cover a short position at $15 and avoid being short during an earnings release announcement.

Sina Corporation (SINA) Sina is the owner of a Chinese micro-blogging weibo website. Micro-blogging is a growth craze in China and Sina reported 250 million users at the end of 2011 and was adding 20 million per month. Unfortunately, Sina has suffered from the curse of social media companies as a business: How to generate profits in the face of growing expenses to support the growing number of subscribers? Sina earned $1.74 per share in 2010, saw usership increase exponentially in 2011 and the consensus earnings estimate for 2011 is 94 cents per share, a 50% decline. The company reports 2011 fourth quarter results on February 27. The earnings estimate for the quarter is a profit of 21 cents per share, less than half the 46 cents earned a year earlier. The Wall Street analysts as a group have a little more optimism about 2012, forecasting earnings of $1.41. Over the last several months, the consensus earnings have been declining and Sina is trading at 44 times very iffy forward earnings. It is hard to see a good reason to be long this stock, so short it.

Renren Inc. (RENN) Renren is the Chinese answer to Facebook. The company went public in May 2011 and after the $14 IPO the shares peaked at $21.93 on the IPO trading day. The share value has been mostly downhill ever since. The share price dropped below $10 in early August 2011. Since the end of summer the stock's trading range has been $3.20 to $7. The share price popped 50% from $4 to $6 when the Facebook pending IPO was announced. As the forerunner to the Facebook IPO, Renren was not profitable who it went public, but was expected to soon turn profitable, after raking in that $700 million of IPO money. For 2012, the consensus earnings estimate is a loss of 7 cents per share with the most optimistic analyst forecasting a 4 cent profit. Sell Renren short above $5 and cover at $3.50.

Baidu.com Inc. (BIDU) Baidu is probably the most dangerous short selling candidate listed here. Baidu is the Chinese version of Google (GOOG), receiving 75 percent of the country's search results and is a large cap stock itself with a $47 billion market cap. Baidu operating profits were up 91% in 2011 and net income for the fourth quarter increased by 77%. The Wall Street consensus estimate has net income growing by 50% in 2012. So what are the reasons to short sell this growth stock?

These Chinese Internet stocks have mostly received positive press and share value forecasts over the recent past. Yet they all have vulnerabilities which could result in profits for short sellers. Traders who short sell often must go against the Wall Street crowd, which has a vested interest in stocks generally going up in value. As a final point, foreign stocks from a specific country often move in the same direction together. If a large company such as Baidu starts to lose value, many other Chinese tech stocks will follow along as investors sell of the country as a whole.

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Raleigh, N.C. The state Department of Transportation gave the public one last opportunity Monday to speak out about aplan to collect tolls along Interstate 95 to pay for highway improvements.

About 200 people turned out for the final public meeting about the tolls at a Fayetteville hotel, 10 days after the Federal Highway Administration gave the plan conditional approval. Many asked that the state find other ways to fund road improvements, but the DOT said the sta has to maintain more roads with less money.

North Carolina, which is one of three states participating in a pilot project allowing tolling on existing interstates, consistently ranks in the top two states for the number of roads it manages. It also ranks near the bottom nationally in dollars spent per mile of highway.

Still, Chuck Fager, of Fayetteville, said he worries that tolls would scare business away from the I-95 corridor.

"It will make this region much less attractive to new businesses and employers," Fager said. "It will be an economic setback to the region."

Fager mapped the alternatives to the highway's path through North Carolina online.

"From border to border, it's three hours," he said. "If you take 301, it would take five hours."

Even if people do choose to take different routes, he said, tolls will still affect everyone.

"Most everything we buy will be coming by truck, and the heavy cost of the tolls will be passed on (to consumers)," Fager said.

Musheerah Ali, of Lumberton, drives on I-95 every day to get to Fayetteville for work and said she doesn't support tolling.

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DOT collects final public input in Fayetteville on I-95 tolling plan

28-02-2012 16:02 13th track off my Debut Mixtape "Still Goin' Hard" Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DoeMakerDOT

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13. DoeMaker Dot - Like My Last - Video