Tag: Investing

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Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 1/20/2023 Weekly Update

Welcome back to the weekly Dividend Dollars portfolio review! This portfolio update is brought to you by Sharesight, a portfolio tracking tool that I am happy to partner with. Their platform makes tracking trading and dividend history, understanding your performance, and saving time a breeze. I wrote a review of the product that you can read here if you’re interested in learning more! Click the link above or the picture below to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers!

Here at Dividend Dollars, our investing approach is a dividend growth strategy with aspects of value investing and fundamental analysis. I am a young investor in my 20’s and by sticking to this strategy over the long term, the magical powers of compounding are on my side. This allows me to more easily build substantial positions in dividend paying stocks over time, which will one day help me reach the ultimate goal of being financially free through the sources of passive income they provide. You can read more about the strategy here. Let’s dive into the portfolio review!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $13,130 into the account the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $13,332.90. That’s a total gain of 1.55%. The account is down $233.43 for the week which is a 1.72% loss.

We started building this portfolio on 9/24/2021 and when compared to the S&P 500 we are outperforming the market so far! Within that same timeframe, the S&P 500 is down -10.84% which puts us 12.39% higher than the market! I love tracking my portfolio against a benchmark like the S&P. The above chart comes from Sharesight which makes portfolio and dividend management a breeze!

We added $120 in cash to the account this week, trades made will be broken out below.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio that tracks annual dividend income, yield, beta, dividend growth, and more.

Below is a table of everything we are invested in so far. There you can see my number of shares, shares bought through dividend reinvestments, average cost, gains, and more. The tickers in green are positions that I bought shares in this week, the blue ones are positions that I reinvested dividends into, the yellow ones are positions that announced a dividend increase this week, and the red are positions that I trimmed. Our PADI this week decreased from $500 to $505. This is mainly because of a drop in the yearly payout from $XYLG following their most recent dividend declaration.

Dividends

This week I received no dividend, bummer!

In my portfolio, all positions have dividend reinvestment enabled. I don’t hold onto the dividend, I don’t try to time the reinvestment, I just let my broker do it automatically.

Dividends received for 2023: $14.88

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $425.28

Trades

This was quite a busy week with a large mid-week dip that I took advantage of followed by a sweet two-day rally to leave the market and my portfolio significantly higher.

I made lots of buys in the portfolio on the down-day Wednesday and then a little more on Thursday. Firstly, we initiated a new position in Orsted (which I wrote a brief article on how they are poised to be a huge renewable power player in the North Sea, you can read that here), add to my favorite DCA’s of ALLY, INTC, and BAC, and also executed our weekly $10 adds in SPY, XYLG, & SCHD.

Lastly, my first covered call on AT&T expired worthless this week giving me a 100% gain on that premium. I will be watching their earnings call next week and will be looking for a spot to write another.

Below is a breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • January 17th, 2023
    • Orsted ($DNNGY) – added 3 shares at $34.17
  • January 18th, 2023
    • Microsoft ($MSFT) – added 0.14 shares at $240.79
    • Ally Financial ($ALLY) – added 3 shares at 26.84
    • Bank of America ($BAC) – added 2 shares at $33.72
    • Intel ($INTC) – added 2 shares at $28.77
    • SPDR S&P 500 ETF ($SPY) – added $10 at $394.45 per share (weekly buy)
    • Global X S&P 500 Covered Call & Growth ETF ($XYLG) – added $10 at $25.88 per share (weekly buy)
    • Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ($SCHD) – added $10 at $76.39 per share (weekly buy)
  • January 19th, 2023
    • Ally Financial ($ALLY) – added 1 share at $25.70
    • Intel ($INTC) – added 1 share at $28.34
    • 3M ($MMM) – added 0.5 shares at $120.20
  • January 20th, 2023
    • Orsted ($SNNGY) – added 1 share at $29.73
    • AT&T ($T) – $20 Covered Call expired, 100% on $3 premium

Next week I will continue to add $10 into each ETF ($SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD) and will continue to hold onto the rest of my cash if the market gets lower. I have started to slowly deploy that cash in case a bottom has already been hit, but only time will tell. I really want to deploy this cash position into $CMCSA, and $INTC to build 100 share positions in them for covered call activities.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. The market recap and outlook for this wild week will be posted on Saturday, so make sure to have the site bookmarked or subscribe via email on the homepage!

Let me know what you think of the progress so far, share with me your progress and questions, interact with me on twitter and Instagram using the links below!

Thank you for reading! See you next week and stay safe!

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Earnings Economics Market Recap Market Update Stock Market

Stock Market Recap & Outlook (1/13/22) – CPI Report & Q4 Earnings Kicks Off

Apologies for missing the review last week, travel makes it hard! We are back and don’t have any more plans for a little while, so writing mode is fully engaged!

Anyways, this weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

The stock market decided to keep the heat on high for the second week of 2023. We logged decent gains on the basis that the Fed won’t have to raise rates as much as feared and that the U.S. economy may see a “soft landing” after all.

The first half of the week was a snooze-fest, as most traders were waiting for Fed Chair Powell’s speech on Tuesday, the December Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Thursday, and bank earnings reports on Friday that marked the official start to the Q4 earnings reporting season.

Fed Chair Powell gave a speech titled “Central Bank Independence” Tuesday morning. Powell’s speech made no mention of any kind of policy that would harm markets, he did, however, acknowledge that, “…restoring price stability when inflation is high can require measures that are not popular in the short term as we raise rates to slow the economy.”

The latter point notwithstanding, the S&P 500 was able to close above technical resistance at its 50-day moving average.

By Thursday’s open, the market had received the much anticipated CPI report. It was in-line with the market’s hopeful expectations that it would show continued disinflation in total CPI (from 7.1% year/year to 6.5%) and core CPI (from 6.0% year/year to 5.7%).

Those were pleasing headline numbers, but it is worth noting that services inflation, which the Fed watches closely, did not improve and rose to 7.5% year/year from 7.2% in November.

That understanding did not seem to hold back the stock or bond market. After a brief dip, the price action on Thursday generally supported the view that the Fed will pause its rate hikes sooner rather than later. In fact, the fed funds futures market now prices in a 67.0% probability of the target range for the fed funds rate peaking at 4.75-5.00% in May versus 55.2% a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

The move up in the stock market was particularly notable considering the big move leading up to the CPI report. The S&P 500 was up 3.7% for the year entering Thursday and up 4.4% from its low of 3,802 on January 5.

Ahead of the open on Friday, the market gave back some gains and featured a series of mixed quarterly earnings from Bank of America ($BAC), JPMorgan Chase ($JPM), Wells Fargo ($WFC), and Citigroup ($C). Those stocks languished out of the gate due to higher-than-expected credit loss provisions. But true to form for 2023 so far, buyers returned and bought the weakness. Before long the bank stocks were back in positive territory and so was the broader market.

The S&P 500 moved above its 200-day moving average (3,981) on the rebound trade and closed the week a whisker shy of 4,000.

Only one of the S&P 500 sectors closed with a loss this week: consumer defensive (-0.74%) — while the heavily weighted consumer cyclical (+5.94%) and information technology (+5.58%) sectors logged the biggest gains.

The 2-yr Treasury note yield fell five basis points to 4.22% and the 10-yr note yield fell six basis points to 3.51%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 1.6% this week to 102.18.

WTI crude oil futures made strides to the upside this week rising 8.5% to $80.06/bbl. Natural gas futures fell 4.8% to $3.23/mmbtu.

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

As I mentioned in the last market update, after basing around the 3,825 level for a while, the next move was a significant one. I expected that dip buyers would step in with tax loss harvesting over, earnings season approaching, and the next rate hike still a few weeks away.

I said, “they could push the market higher for next week, or even the week after that” and that’s exactly what’s happened! The January Effect is in full swing. Last week I was correct in not expecting any major move in one direction or the other.

I predicted a short-term bounce before drawbacks are caused by possible earnings disappointments, the next rate hikes, and key economic data misses. We saw this week that two of those items are losing steam.

The CPI report showed that falling inflation is confirmed, but not overly impressive.

Then, the banks kicked off earnings. Even though they beat expectations, their results were a mixed bag. But weren’t enough to push the market lower. Many more key earnings are to come, but if the banks were any indication, this earnings season may not be the “make it or break it season”.

So far, 6% of companies in the S&P 500 have reported Q4 results with an 86% beat on EPS and 57% beat on revenue. The earnings so far show 4% growth on a year-over-year basis compared to a -4.1% estimated when Q4 ended. The season is still early, so let’s not extrapolate on these results too much. Rather, lets look at the technicals!

A lot has changed since the last time we did weekly update. The bear market low is still intact and 4,292 is the target for a new bull market to start. These two items are now -10% and +8% away from the current level.

For weeks I have been pointing out the resistance at the 50-day SMA (dark blue line) and the 100-day SMA (light blue line), the market finally broke above them. It did not take long for the next level, the 200-day SMA (white line), to come into play. Our last daily candle still encompasses the line, which is not yet a clean break. This line also converges with long-term downtrend area that began at the last all time high. The prior four failures at this level suggests it won’t be easy to break.

I think we have seen the short-term bounce that I last wrote about. This resistance we are heading into is the mother-of-all-resistance! Bargain buyers came in strong in the first two weeks of 2023, but steam may run out soon if earnings season disappoints and resistance proves heavy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see profit taking, and a red week next week, but I don’t believe we will fall under the 100 SMA now turned support.

That’s it for my recap! If you would like to see how I am building my dividend portfolio using my predictions/strategy written here, you can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update on this link.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Economics Market Recap Market Update Stock Market

Stock Market Week in Review (12/30/22) – 2022 End Without a Bang

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

The last week of 2022 shaped up to be a disappointing one, similar to the whole of the year. With all the major indices finishing the year off quite lower than where they started. The S&P 500 ended down 18.2%, The Nasdaq 100 ended down 33.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrials ended down 8.6% .

The Santa Clause Rally never really seemed to kick off and Q3 earnings season is now over, with the next not starting for about two more weeks.

The major indices remained under pressure from continued weakness in some of the most beaten-up names this year. Specifically, mega cap losses accelerated this week on lingering valuation concerns and presumably tax-loss selling activity by participants who bought into the seemingly invincible stocks last year.

Some of the mega cap names aren’t so “mega” any more given the massive loss in market capitalization they have suffered this year. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF $MGK fell  0.3% this week and 34.0% for the year.

The Santa Claus rally period, which is the last five trading days of the year and the first two trading sessions of the new year, has gotten off to an uneven start. It is believed to be a good sign for how the new year will start when this period produces a cumulative gain over that stretch. 2022 was a definite exception to that belief. Recall that the 2021 Santa Claus rally produced a net gain of 1.4% for the S&P 500 and yet the S&P 500 declined 5.3% this January and 5.0% in the first quarter.

It looked like Santa Claus might come charging to town following Thursday’s rally. The S&P 500 closed the session just a whisker below the 3,850 level, where it has remained since mid-December, but then backed off again in Friday’s trade.

When this year’s Santa Claus rally period began, the S&P 500 stood at 3,822.39. The S&P 500 closed Friday’s session at 3839.50 after visiting the 3,800 level.

It was also a disappointing week in the Treasury market. The 2-yr note yield rose 10 basis points to 4.42% and the 10-yr note yield rose 13 basis points to 3.88%.

The bump in yields was another headwind for equities, particularly the growth stocks, which was the case all year. The Russell 3000 Growth Index fell 0.3% this week, and 29.6% for the year, versus the Russell 3000 Value Index which rose 0.1% this week and fell 10.1% for the year.

Separately, Southwest Air $LUV was an individual story stock of note after the airline canceled thousands of flights due to the winter storm. Tesla $TSLA was another focal point, trading in roller-coaster fashion. The stock hit 108.76 at its low on Tuesday, leaving it down 69.0% for the year, but managed to rebound and hit a high of 124.48 in Friday’s trade.

Only 3 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed with a gain this week in thin trading conditions. The financials sector rose 0.74%, the energy sector rose 0.47%, aided by a bump in oil prices above $80.00/bbl, and the communication sector rose 0.40%. Meanwhile, the materials and consumer staples sectors were the worst performers with losses of 1.07% and 0.84%, respectively.

The economic calendar was light on major releases this week. Featured reports included the November Pending Home Sale Index, which declined 4.0%, and continuing jobless claims for the week ending December 17, which hit their highest level since February (1.710 million). Next week will see many major releases that includes the December ISM Manufacturing Index, the December Employment Situation Report, and the December ISM Non-Manufacturing Index.

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

Last week I was correct in not expecting any major move in one direction or the other. The SPX ended only 6 points lower this week than where it ended last week!

It appears that the Bear Market level is being confirmed as a key level of resistance. And with all major moving averages above the that level, there is not much happening in form of support below our level.

We have been basing at this level for 8 days, which makes me think the next move in either direction will be a significant one.

With the next earnings season still two weeks away and the next rate hike still about four weeks away, the dip buyers are likely to step in again, now that the tax-loss harvesting season has ended. Most people like to buy things when they are on sale, and right now the SPX is 20% off.

Data releases on the ISM Index and Unemployment next week could be the items that have the largest impact.

January will be the month the watch for next year. Given the end of tax-loss harvesting and the fact that we are a few weeks away from key economic data releases and the next Fed hike, I think bargain buyers could push the market higher for next week, or even the week after that putting the January Effect in full swing.

The January Barometer also shows that January overall will be the month to watch. The barometer is: If the Standard & Poor’s 500 market index ends January higher than it started, the rest of the year will follow suit, and vice versa. the January Barometer has registered only 11 errors between 1950 and 2021, giving the indicator an accuracy ratio of 84.5%.

With all of that in mind, I think we see a short-term bounce before possible drawbacks caused by earnings disappointments, Fed hike, and other key economic data bring the market down to a lower level in January.

That’s it for my recap! If you would like to see how I am building my dividend portfolio using my predictions/strategy written here, you can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update on this link.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 12/23/2022 Weekly Update

Welcome back to the weekly Dividend Dollars portfolio review! This portfolio update is brought to you by Sharesight, a portfolio tracking tool that I am happy to partner with. Their platform makes tracking trading and dividend history, understanding your performance, and saving time a breeze. I wrote a review of the product that you can read here if you’re interested in learning more! Click the link above or the picture below to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers!

Here at Dividend Dollars, our investing approach is a dividend growth strategy with aspects of value investing and fundamental analysis. I am a young investor in my 20’s and by sticking to this strategy over the long term, the magical powers of compounding are on my side. This allows me to more easily build substantial positions in dividend paying stocks over time, which will one day help me reach the ultimate goal of being financially free through the sources of passive income they provide. You can read more about the strategy here. Let’s dive into the portfolio review!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $12,770 into the account the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $12,593.26. That’s a total loss of 1.38%. The account is up $8.20 for the week which is a 0.06% gain. Pretty flat week.

We started building this portfolio on 9/24/2021 and when compared to the S&P 500 we are outperforming the market so far! Within that same timeframe, the S&P 500 is down -13.71% which puts us 12% higher than the market! I love tracking my portfolio against a benchmark like the S&P. The above chart comes from Sharesight which makes portfolio and dividend management a breeze!

We added $60 in cash to the account this week, trades made will be broken out below.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio that tracks annual dividend income, yield, beta, dividend growth, and more.

Below is a table of everything we are invested in so far. There you can see my number of shares, shares bought through dividend reinvestments, average cost, gains, and more. The tickers in green are positions that I bought shares in this week, the blue ones are positions that I reinvested dividends into, the yellow ones are positions that announced a dividend increase this week, and the red are positions that I trimmed. Our moves this week increased my PADI by $9 to $491.

Dividends

This week I received only 1 dividend for $2.21 from $SMHB.

In my portfolio, all positions have dividend reinvestment enabled. I don’t hold onto the dividend, I don’t try to time the reinvestment, I just let my broker do it automatically.

Dividends received for 2022: $377.90

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $400.83

Trades

This week was mainly a DCA week was a slow one. I took the opportunity average down a little in AT&T and pick up some shares in Medtronic right before the ex-dividend date. Most other activity was my weekly buys in $SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD as well as reinvesting dividends.

Below is a breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • December 19th, 2022
    • SPDR S&P 500 ETF ($SPY) – added $10 at $383.54 per share (weekly buy)
    • Global X S&P 500 Covered Call & Growth ETF ($XYLG) – added $10 at $25.30 per share (weekly buy)
    • Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ($SCHD) – added $10 at $75.14 per share (weekly buy)
    • AT&T ($T) – added 2 shares at $18.13
    • Medtronic ($MDT) – added 2 shares at $76.73
  • December 20th, 2022
    • Realty Income ($O) – added 1 share at $63.46
  • December 21st, 2022
    • ETRACS 2x Levered ETN ($SMHB) – dividend reinvested

Next week I will continue to add $10 into each ETF ($SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD) and will continue to hold onto the rest of my cash. I really want to deploy this cash position into $T, $CMCSA, and $INTC to build 100 share positions in them for covered call activities.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. Let’s kill it next week. Stay patient and be ready to buy income producing assets at a discount!

Read the weekly market review to get a recap of the week and help arm yourself with market knowledge! There’s tons to discuss with the latest FOMC meeting and economic data releases, so go give it a read!

Let me know what you think of the progress so far, share with me your progress and questions, interact with me on twitter and Instagram using the links below!

Thank you for reading! See you next week and stay safe!

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Economics Market Update Stock Market

Stock Market Week in Review (12/16/22) – CPI and Fed Meeting

FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2020 file photo, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell listens during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Federal Reserve officials were convinced last month that the U.S. economy and job growth had slowed as coronavirus cases surged across the country. They noted that the economy's outlook is heavily dependent on the course of the virus. (Al Drago/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

The week started strong after last week’s losses then quickly stagnated a fell as we awaited and then reacted the CPI release and FOMC policy decision in the mid-week.

Some merger and acquisition activity helped to fuel the early positivity in the week. We saw Amgen ($AMGN) acquire Horizon Pharmaceuticals ($HZNP) for $116.50 per share and Thoma Bravo acquire Coupa Software ($COUP) for $81.00 per share.

Then, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) release for November came in lower than anticipated which encouraged market upside based on the idea that a moderation in inflation should convince the Fed to slow the pace of its rate hikes. Or even place a lower ceiling on its terminal rate.

This pushed the S&P above its 200-day moving average. The Dow was up 2.1% at intraday highs on Tuesday and Nasdaq 3.8%. Those gains were eventually reined in and closed well off of the highs.

A deeper look at the CPI reading shows sticky and elevated core services in front of the FOMC rate decision to follow the next day. The major indices regroup in premarket trading on Wednesday and made some gains leading up to the FOMC announcement.

The Fed announced a 50 basis point raise to 4.25-4.50% and indicated in their Summary of Economic Projections that their median estimates for the terminal rate in 2023 and their expectations for inflation had risen. The vote to raise the fed funds rate was unanimous. The below dot plot shows 17 of the 19 Fed officials forecast a rate above 5% in 2023.

Separately, there was another announcement that the Fed would continue to let $60 billion of Treasury securities and $35 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities fall off the balance sheet each month.

Fed Chair Powell spent most of his press conference being stern on committing to 2% inflation, saying that it is going to take substantially more evidence to give confidence that inflation is on a downward path and the Fed expects to sit at its terminal rate for some time. He confirmed that we are close to level of tightening needed, but the Fed’s focus is not on rate cuts, which we can see is the case in the Economic Projections.

Overall, the Fed was much more hawkish than what the market expected. The indices faded into close on Wednesday and saw continued selling over the remainder of the week pushed by larger concern that the Fed could overtighten and trigger a deeper economic slowdown.

Thursday saw a slurry of rate hikes from other central banks across the world. The ECB, Bank of England, Swiss National Bank, Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority, and the Norges Bank all raised their benchmark rates. These hikes occurred at the same time that we received updated retail data and industrial production data out of the US and China. Both items grew concerns of global economic slowdown.

The S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq fell 99, 764, and 360 points respectively during Thursday’s freefall. Events this week showed that projections for 2023 earnings are at greater risk of downward revisions and stock prices are adjusting. The same mentality occurred on Friday with a quadruple witching day. There was broad based selling in the market and a number of moving average supports were broken.

Overall, the S&P fell 5% from where it was prior to the FOMC decision on Wednesday to where it closed on Friday. 10 of the 11 sectors in the S&P were red this week with consumer discretionary, materials, and communication services faring the worst, meanwhile the energy sector was the lone green close.

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

Last week I was almost spot on with my expectations and main takeaways. I said that the CPI release and the FOMC meeting could provide huge volatility in the market, and it did. In both ways too. The market was up over 1.4% on Monday leading up to the report and another 7% on Tuesday after the report. Then the FOMC projections and meeting minutes were released, and the hawkish Fed scared the market into breaking down below a number of key moving averages.

Last week, I spoke about the straddle between the 100 and 200 SMAs and a break above could end at the trendline. Monday and Tuesday did just this when riding on the coattails of the positive CPI report. Then I spoke about how a breakdown under the 100SMA and we could see a quick drop to the 3,815 area as a gap fill.

Much to my surprise, BOTH of those situations played out. The Fed meeting showed that a majority of members raised their expectation of the terminal rate and the raised their average expected inflation rates for the next two years. This shook the markets, causing a drop from $4,020 to $3,830 in three days. Pretty dang close to the area I called.

Moving forward, there is much more technical resistance to push us down, rather than support to push us higher. Now that we’ve broken through the 200SMA, 100SMA, and are close to breaking the 50SMA, these figures are becoming resistance.

We are on the verge of breaking through the bear market line (20% draw down from recent highs) with the YTD low looking not too far behind it. We are approximately +12% away from the bull market line (20% gain over recent lows) and -7% from YTD low.

Signs are pointing lower. Key data releases next week of the Q3 GDP, jobless claims, PCE, and consumer sentiment will give us continued hints into the state of the economy and the lagging effects of rate hikes. The Fed is expecting lower GDP in the next year, maybe we see this begin with the Q3 GDP reading. This will be economic data release to watch next week in my opinion. Surprises in either direction could carry big moves in market prices.

With the next earnings season on the way, Fed commentary continuing to spark volatility, and mixed economic data, the next move is anybody’s guess. I think a near-term bounce is likely with more downside to follow after the new year. Then, January will be the month to watch as history shows that it sets the market’s mood for the rest of the year.

I would love to see more red next week so that I can buy more discounted stocks like I did this week. You can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update here.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 12/16/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to the weekly Dividend Dollars portfolio review! This portfolio update is brought to you by Sharesight, a portfolio tracking tool that I am happy to partner with. Their platform makes tracking trading and dividend history, understanding your performance, and saving time a breeze. I wrote a review of the product that you can read here if you’re interested in learning more! Click the link above or the picture below to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers!

Here at Dividend Dollars, our investing approach is a dividend growth strategy with aspects of value investing and fundamental analysis. I am a young investor in my 20’s and by sticking to this strategy over the long term, the magical powers of compounding are on my side. This allows me to more easily build substantial positions in dividend paying stocks over time, which will one day help me reach the ultimate goal of being financially free through the sources of passive income they provide. You can read more about the strategy here. Let’s dive into the portfolio review!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $12,710 into the account the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $12,470.80. That’s a total loss of 1.88%. The account is down $273.08 for the week which is a 2.14% loss.

We started building this portfolio on 9/24/2021 and when compared to the S&P 500 we are outperforming the market so far! Within that same timeframe, the S&P 500 is down -13.93% which puts us 12% higher than the market! I love tracking my portfolio against a benchmark like the S&P. The above chart comes from Sharesight which makes portfolio and dividend management a breeze!

We added $60 in cash to the account this week, trades made will be broken out below.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio that tracks annual dividend income, yield, beta, dividend growth, and more.

Below is a table of everything we are invested in so far. There you can see my number of shares, shares bought through dividend reinvestments, average cost, gains, and more. The tickers in green are positions that I bought shares in this week, the blue ones are positions that I reinvested dividends into, the yellow ones are positions that announced a dividend increase this week, and the red are positions that I trimmed. Our moves this week increased my PADI by $7 to $482.

Dividends

This week I received 5 dividends totaling $21.72.

In my portfolio, all positions have dividend reinvestment enabled. I don’t hold onto the dividend, I don’t try to time the reinvestment, I just let my broker do it automatically.

Dividends received for 2022: $375.69

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $398.61

Trades

This week was mainly a DCA week into some names that I have been pushing to get 100 shares in ($T and $CMCSA). Most other activity was my weekly buys in $SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD as well as reinvesting dividends. The only difference there this week was the weekly buys. Rather than having those auto-invest on Monday, I turned that off and timed the investment myself. With the CPI release and Fed meeting, I knew it was better to wait and see what the market did, and luckily the market dropped hard giving me better buys!

Below is a breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • December 12th, 2022
    • $SCHD dividend reinvested
    • $MMM dividend reinvested
  • December 13th, 2022
    • ProShares UltraShort S&P ($SDS) – added 1 share at $41.31
  • December 14th, 2022
    • Comcast ($CMCSA) – added 1 share at $36.02
  • December 15th, 2022
    • SPDR S&P 500 ETF ($SPY) – added $10 at $390.53 per share (weekly buy)
    • Global X S&P 500 Covered Call & Growth ETF ($XYLG) – added $10 at $25.68 per share (weekly buy)
    • Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ($SCHD) – added $10 at $75.58 per share (weekly buy)
    • AT&T ($T) – added 1 share at $18.61
  • December 16th, 2022
    • $NEE dividend reinvested
    • $O dividend reinvested
    • $AY dividend reinvested
    • AT&T ($T) – added 1 share at $18.37

Next week I will continue to add $10 into each ETF ($SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD) and will continue to hold onto the rest of my cash. I really want to deploy this cash position into $T, $CMCSA, and $INTC to build 100 share positions in them for covered call activities.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. Let’s kill it next week. Stay patient and be ready to buy income producing assets at a discount!

Read the weekly market review to get a recap of the week and help arm yourself with market knowledge! There’s tons to discuss with the latest FOMC meeting and economic data releases, so go give it a read!

Let me know what you think of the progress so far, share with me your progress and questions, interact with me on twitter and Instagram using the links below!

Thank you for reading! See you next week and stay safe!

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Earnings Economics Market Recap Stock Market

Stock Market Week in Review (12/9/22) – This Week’s PMI and Next Week’s CPI

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

It was a trend-down week for the stock market after the quick run we experienced in the end of last week. At the start of the week, the S&P 500 was up over 10% for the quarter, the Dow Jones Industrial average was up over 18%, the NASDAQ composite was up over 6%, and the Russel 2000 was up over 11%

These gains have primarily been predicated on the notion that the Fed may soften its approach, a view that was presumably aided by Fed Chair Powell’s speech last week at the Brookings Institute.

This optimism was cooled this week as concerns resurfaced that the Fed might overtighten and trigger a period of much weaker growth or even recession. The main sticking point for the stock market is that a weaker growth outlook does not bode well for 2023 earnings.

A stronger-than-expected ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for November (56.5% vs 54.4% prior and a 53.3% expectation) also supported the idea that the Fed may rise rates higher and hold them there for longer.

Going into the historically strong “Santa Rally” month, this week was a disappointing start. The S&P 500 had the worst start to a month (five consecutive losses) since 2011.

Concerns that the Fed is going to trigger a deeper economic setback have been evident in the Treasury market for some time now. An inversion of the yield curve, which deepened this week, has often been a leading indicator of a recession. The 2s10s spread is now the widest it has been since the early 1980s. The 2-yr note yield rose to 4.37% and the 10-yr note yield rose to 3.63%.

Those growth concerns started to register more noticeably for the stock market this week. All 11 S&P 500 sectors lost ground, but the slimmest losses were registered by the counter-cyclical utilities, health care, and consumer staples sectors. The sharpest losses were logged by the energy, communication services, and consumer discretionary sectors.

Collapsing oil prices were another manifestation of the market’s growth concerns. WTI crude oil futures fell 10.8% this week to $71.29/bbl despite reports that China is easing up on zero-COVID related policies.

There was some economic data that reflected a welcome moderation in wage-based inflation. The revised Q3 Productivity Report showed a softer 2.4% increase in unit labor costs than the preliminary estimate of 3.5%. Stocks did not rally on the data, though.

The role of wage based inflation in the Fed’s policy decisions was highlighted this week by an article in The Wall Street Journal from Nick Timiraos, who some believe is the Fed’s preferred journalist for providing breaking information. Mr. Timiraos suggested that wage inflation could ultimately compel the Fed in 2023 to take its benchmark rate higher than the 5.00% the market currently expects.

In other news this week, the FTC is seeking to block Microsoft’s ($MSFT) acquisition of Activision Blizzard ($ATVI).

Looking ahead to next week, the market will be focused on the November Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Tuesday after the Producer Price Index (PPI) for November came in high this Friday. Then the FOMC decision and release of updated economic projections follows on Wednesday and could very well provide a volatile market for the week.

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

Last week we had a clean rejection off of the major trendline on Monday, fell to the 100-day simple moving average on Tuesday, bounced a bit on Thursday, and fell back down to the 100 SMA on Friday.

This 100-day SMA has been triple-confirmed as support (small white arrows below) and will now be tested again this next week. Resistance at the 200-day SMA proved to work again this week. SPX ran into resistance at the 200-day SMA in August and couldn’t hold over it Monday morning.

Right now, the market is in a little bit of straddle under the 200SMA and the 100SMA. Break over the 200SMA and bulls could have a hayday until the meet the trendline again for the next task. Break under the 100SMA and bears could see a quick drop to 3,815 area as a gap fill.

Last week did not show much strength for buyers, so I think breaking down or hugging onto the 100SMA is a more likely path.

Economic events next week could bring huge momentum into the market in either direction depending on how they play out.

On Monday we have the treasury budget which shouldn’t be too significant. If anything, Monday price action will be fairly uneventful as the market awaits the CPI reading on Tuesday. If the CPI comes in higher than expected, the market could drop fast. If CPI comes in better than expected, investors will still wait for the FOMC rate decision on Wednesday to truly bring in heavy buying power.

Wednesday will be the key to next week. As we get closer to the Fed Funds target rate with each rate hike, the subsequent rate hikes become more and more important as clues to tell us if the Fed over or undershot. The market expects a 50-bps hike on Wednesday, if we see higher or low expect volatility.

Then, Thursday will bring us retail data which will give input on the state of the consumer. All of these big items together will make next week one to remember (and be cautious of).

Add to that, next week is also the last week of earnings season with a couple of big tech names ($ADBE and $ORCL) reporting. Q3 earnings, from the 497 S&P 500 companies that have reported so far, have a 59% beat of the top line and 69% beat of the bottom line. This was 63% and 76% last quarter, respectively.

Big misses by the earnings next week could enhance any downward moves that are predicated by the economic events. Any surprises won’t carry much weight into what appears to be a very bearish week next week.

What’s more important is drop in earnings beats from last quarter. This is a clear sign that the Fed driven growth slow down is occurring. Expect more lack luster earnings seasons, and to greater degrees, while we stay in this high-rate environment.

Overall, next week’s performance lies greatly with the CPI and Fed rate change. Those things are tough to predict, therefore, outside of those events and looking only at technicals, I think next week is a red one. But only time will tell! Be ready either way!

I was ready for the move down last week and made some favorable adds to my portfolio. You can read about these moves in my weekly portfolio update here.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 12/9/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to the weekly Dividend Dollars portfolio review! This portfolio update is brought to you by Sharesight, a portfolio tracking tool that I am happy to partner with. Their platform makes tracking trading and dividend history, understanding your performance, and saving time a breeze. I wrote a review of the product that you can read here if you’re interested in learning more! Click the link above or the picture below to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers!

Here at Dividend Dollars, our investing approach is a dividend growth strategy with aspects of value investing and fundamental analysis. I am a young investor in my 20’s and by sticking to this strategy over the long term, the magical powers of compounding are on my side. This allows me to more easily build substantial positions in dividend paying stocks over time, which will one day help me reach the ultimate goal of being financially free through the sources of passive income they provide. You can read more about the strategy here. Let’s dive into the portfolio review!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $12,645 into the account the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $12,662.00. That’s a total gain of 0.13%. The account is down $204.14 for the week which is a 1.59% loss.

We started building this portfolio on 9/24/2021 and when compared to the S&P 500 we are outperforming the market so far! Within that same timeframe, the S&P 500 is down -11.7% which puts us 11.8% higher than the market! I love tracking my portfolio against a benchmark like the S&P. The above chart comes from Sharesight which makes portfolio and dividend management a breeze!

We added $60 in cash to the account this week, trades made will be broken out below.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio that tracks annual dividend income, yield, beta, dividend growth, and more.

Below is a table of everything we are invested in so far. There you can see my number of shares, shares bought through dividend reinvestments, average cost, gains, and more. The tickers in green are positions that I bought shares in this week, the blue ones are positions that I reinvested dividends into, the yellow ones are positions that announced a dividend increase this week, and the red are positions that I trimmed. Our moves this week increase my PADI by $8 to $475.

Dividends

This week I received a $1.14 dividend from $MSFT and $2.92 and $AMGN.

In my portfolio, all positions have dividend reinvestment enabled (except for $AMGN as that is a position I have exited). I don’t hold onto the dividend, I don’t try to time the reinvestment, I just let my broker do it automatically.

Dividends received for 2022: $353.97

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $376.89

Trades

This week featured a major buy in celebration of my birthday! Last December, I started the personal tradition of buying myself a whole share of Microsoft as a happy birthday gift to myself. That was my main purchase this week, plus some other shares in $T and $ALLY for some simply averaging down. As usual, we also had out automatic buys in $XYLG, $SCHD, and $SPY on Monday.

Below is a breakdown of the trades I made this week and the reasoning behind them!

  • December 5th, 2022                       
    • SPDR S&P 500 ETF ($SPY) – added $10 at $401.72 per share (weekly automatic buy) and dividend reinvested
    • Global X S&P 500 Covered Call & Growth ETF ($XYLG) – added $10 at $26.10 per share (weekly automatic buy)
    • Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ($SCHD) – added $10 at $77.86 per share (weekly automatic buy)
    • Ally Financials ($ALLY) – added 1 share at $25.01
  • December 6th, 2022
    • AT&T ($T) – added 3 shares at $19.00
  • December 7th, 2022
    • Microsoft ($MSFT) – added 1 share at $243.30

Next week I will continue to add $10 into each ETF ($SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD) and will continue to hold onto the rest of my cash. I really want to deploy this cash position into $T, $CMCSA, and $INTC to build 100 share positions in them for covered call activities.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. Let’s kill it next week. Stay patient and be ready to buy income producing assets at a discount!

My weekly market recap can be read here. Use this to prepare yourself for the coming week!

Let me know what you think of the progress so far, share with me your progress and questions, interact with me on twitter and Instagram using the links below!

Thank you for reading! See you next week and stay safe!

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 11/25/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to the weekly Dividend Dollars portfolio review! This portfolio update is brought to you by Sharesight, a portfolio tracking tool that I am happy to partner with. Their platform makes tracking trading and dividend history, understanding your performance, and saving time a breeze. I wrote a review of the product that you can read here if you’re interested in learning more! Click the link above or the picture below to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers!

Here at Dividend Dollars, our investing approach is a dividend growth strategy with aspects of value investing and fundamental analysis. I am a young investor in my 20’s and by sticking to this strategy over the long term, the magical powers of compounding are on my side. This allows me to more easily build substantial positions in dividend paying stocks over time, which will one day help me reach the ultimate goal of being financially free through the sources of passive income they provide. You can read more about the strategy here. Let’s dive into the portfolio review!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $12,280 into the account the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $12,548.07. That’s a total gain of 2.18%. The account is up $144.10 for the week which is a 1.16% gain.

We started building this portfolio on 9/24/2021 and when compared to the S&P 500 we are outperforming the market so far! Within that same timeframe, the S&P 500 is down -11.00% which puts us 12% higher than the market! I love tracking my portfolio against a benchmark like the S&P. The above chart comes from Sharesight which makes portfolio and dividend management a breeze!

We added $60 in cash to the account this week, trades made will be broken out below.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio that tracks annual dividend income, yield, beta, dividend growth, and more.

Below is a table of everything we are invested in so far. There you can see my number of shares, shares bought through dividend reinvestments, average cost, gains, and more. The tickers in green are positions that I bought shares in this week, the blue ones are positions that I reinvested dividends into, the yellow ones are positions that announced a dividend increase this week, and the red are positions that I trimmed. Our moves this week increased my PADI by $7 to $476.

Dividends

This week we only on dividend: $1.98 from $SMHB

In my portfolio, all positions have dividend reinvestment enabled. I don’t hold onto the dividend, I don’t try to time the reinvestment, I just let my broker do it automatically.

Dividends received for 2022: $330.47

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $353.39

Trades

Below is a breakdown of the trades I made this week and the reasoning behind them!

  • November 21st, 2022 (weekly automatic buys are a crucial part of my portfolio. Building substantial positions in these ETFs help me build my diversity and cash flow in a tried-and-true simple method.)
    • SPDR S&P 500 ETF ($SPY) – added $10 at $394.88 per share (weekly automatic buy) and dividend reinvested
    • Global X S&P 500 Covered Call & Growth ETF ($XYLG) – added $10 at $25.62 per share (weekly automatic buy)
    • Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ($SCHD) – added $10 at $77.21 per share (weekly automatic buy)
  • November 22nd, 2022 (today my $SPY short hit my stoploss. And it hit it hard. I’m a little bummed about it, but it was a lesson I needed in not getting caught up in the emotions of timing the market and feeling strong conviction in one direction over the other. It was also a great lesson in seasonality and option premium burn. Overall, I am still bearish on the market and will continue to hold onto my short positions.)
    • Ally Financial ($ALLY) – added 1 share at $26.18
    • SPY Short – Closed the short for roughly a 60% loss at 1.33.
    • S&P 500 Bear 3X ($SPXS) – added 2 shares at #20.32
  • November 25th, 2022 (An article was posted by Politico on Wednesday that made shares drop by roughly 4%. The article says that “The Federal Trade Commission is likely to file an antitrust lawsuit to block Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of video game giant Activision Blizzard.” That is huge news… but them it goes on to say that “A lawsuit challenging the deal is not guaranteed, and the FTC’s four commissioners have yet to vote out a complaint or meet with lawyers for the companies…”. Essentially, the article is a bunch of hearsay from “three people with knowledge of the matter”. In my opinion, the article has no grounds of the claims coming from a credible source or having any proof of coming actions. My thesis hasn’t changed and I still believe that Microsoft has done a good job of showing that the acquisition is not anti-competitive and is in fact beneficial for consumers, despite Sony’s best attempts at slandering the deal.)
    • Activision Blizzard ($ATVI) – added 1 share at $73.37
    • Leveraged US Small Cap ETN ($SMHB) – dividend reinvested

Next week I will continue to add $10 into each ETF ($SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD) and will continue to hold onto the rest of my cash. I really want to deploy this cash position into $T, $CMCSA, and $INTC to build 100 share positions in them for covered call activities.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. Let’s kill it next week. Stay patient and be ready to buy income producing assets at a discount!

Read the weekly market review to get a recap of the week and help arm yourself with market knowledge! This weekly update and the last weekly update provide opinion pieces from myself and explain why I am bearish on the market.

Let me know what you think of the progress so far, share with me your progress and questions, interact with me on twitter and Instagram using the links below!

Thank you for reading! See you next week and stay safe!

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Economics

Stock Market Week in Review – 10/7/22

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Sharesight, a portfolio tracking tool that I am happy to partner with. Their platform makes tracking trading and dividend history, understanding your performance, and saving time a breeze. Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers!

Weekly Review

2022 Q4 is off to strong start! There was a decent rally on Monday and Tuesday as the market assumed the Fed would slow their rate hike approach soon. A pullback in Treasury yields from last Friday’s close helped push upside higher in the beginning of the week.

The 10-year T notes was at 3.79% last Friday and fell to 3.62% by Tuesday’s close. The two-year note fell 0.12%. At the same time the S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq all had gains of over 5.5%.

The assumption that the Fed would slow was helped by the lower-than-expected ISM Manufacturing and Construction spending and the lower than expected 25 basis point rate increase by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

All did not remain sunny unfortunately, the week ended with a sell off. Treasury yields moved up and the September Employment Report was a reality check for the idea that the Fed would be less aggressive sometime soon.

The employment report showed continued strength in the job market, extra fuel for an aggressive Fed. There were also some hawkish Fed talks this week; Atlanta Fed President Bostic said that the inflation fight is still in its early days and the Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari said that he is not comfortable pausing until there is evidence that inflation is cooling.

Global politics also caused some worries that were in play for the week. OPEC+ announced a production cut of 2 million barrels per day starting next month. This sent oil prices surging with WTI crude futures rising 17.3%. The surge in oil prices kept the energy sector’s gains intact this week. It outpaced the other sectors in the S&P by a margin of 13.9%. On the other hand, the real estate sector suffered the most with a 4.2% loss.

The 10-year yield ended the week at 3.88%, the two year rose to 4.3%. Despite heavily losses on Friday, the market was able to hold onto some gains. The S&P was us 1.5%, Dow 2.0%, and Nasdaq 0.7%.

The data release schedule has some events to keep eyes on. Pay attention to the FOMC minutes on Wednesday, the CPI reading on Thursday, and the retail data on Friday.

As I said last week, inflation has not waivered much, the job market is still healthy, and the average consumer is still doing fairly well. The data continues to show this; however, the data is delayed by a few weeks or a month depending on the report. Because of this delay and because the effects of a hike take time to materialize in those areas, it’s becoming more likely that the Fed stays aggressive with their rate hikes and may push the economy off the cliff before they’ve had time to realize that we’ve missed the window to ease. Be ready for much more losses in the long term, in the short term we could see another somewhat flat week next week, or red if the market continues to be discouraged by the data that supports an aggressive Fed.

Though this week wasn’t too down, I took advantage of the discounts with some buys in Activision ($ATVI), Intel ($INTC), and a few others you can read about in the portfolio update here. Use that update to help you put together a shopping list of some solid dividend stocks to pick up for the long term.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars