Tag: Investing

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Economics Stock Market

Stock Market Week in Review – 8/19/22

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

A pullback in the markets ended the 4-week win streak this week. For the week S&P was down 1.2%, the Dow was down just 0.2% and the Russell was down 2.9%. 8 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished lower with communication services faring the worst. Consumer staples, utilities, and energy were each up at least 1.0%.

Disregarding the red week, the S&P was up 1.1% at most last week on Tuesday. It was just short of its 200-day moving average which provides stiff resistance. After running up almost 19% between its low in June to it’s high on Tuesday, the market was due for a pullback on a short-term over-bought basis, and this strong resistance level was the perfect opportunity for some money to get pulled out of the market.

There weren’t any particular headlines that were the catalyst for this, but there were a mix of smaller headlines that contributed to the mindset. For one, the NAHB Housing Market Index fell for the 8th straight month to a reading of 49, which is considered to be a negative sentiment when below 50. The Empire State Manufacturing survey for the month fell to -31.3 from 11.1, one of the lowest readings on record. Retail sales were flat month-over-month. Fed President Bullard said that he is still in favor of a 75 basis point hike at the next FOMC meeting.

As you can tell, the narrative for the week was that the market got a head of itself while the underlying economic indicators continue to drag. Growth stocks and indexes were down this week compared to their value counterparts. In the same vein, the 10 year treasury note yield pushed 3.00%. These things point to inflation angst and growth headwinds.

This week also had some fallout in the meme stonk space which added to the reality check for a lot of retail investors. Bed Bath & Beyond ($BBBY) dropped over 40% in response to the news that RC Ventures had sold its entire stake and that $BBBY hired consultants to help address the company’s debt load.

Overall, many spaces in the market this week contributed to the broad based poor performance.

Next week we data releases on Durable Goods Orders, a GDP reading, a speech from Fed Chair Powell, employment numbers, and an ISM manufacturing reading to look forward to.

My bullishness last week was wrong, however, I think this last week’s pullback might’ve just been the little break the market needed before continuing a push higher. I see the docket of events on the calendar, and most don’t have terrible forecasts. If anything, the market is ready for bad readings, so anything slightly better than bad might be fuel to push higher. In addition to that, Powell has a talent for telling the market what it wants to hear, so I’m thinking next week we will be in the green.

However, I still believe that the market has more to lose on the long-term. I think that the Fed’s efforts to slow the economy in order to stave off inflation has yet to really materialize. When it does, I think the market has some room to move down and stay down for a decent period of time. Maybe I am just a biasedly a pessimist because I would love to be able to keep buying dividend stocks on deep discount! I tried to do that this week with my buys in Microsoft ($MSFT) and 3M ($MMM) Read the portfolio update here.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Economics Monthly Recap

Monthly Market Recap – June 2022

For the month of June, the S&P 500 fell 8.4% and officially entered a bear market, or a 20% drop from a previous high. This is the 13th bear market for the S&P 500 since 1948. Bear markets often signal economic downturns. This is evident in the fact that 8 of the last 12 bear markets were followed by recessions.

When the economy contracts, the riskiest stocks are often hit the hardest. This includes companies with inflated balance sheets, cyclical earnings, lofty valuations, and poor profit margins. As we discussed last week in our article “What Dividend Strategy Does Best in a Bear Market?”, dividend strategies are inherently more conservative and therefore have performed relatively well in this falling market. The article shows that the S&P has fallen over 20% year-to-date, whereas many of the prominent dividend strategy ETFs had outperformed with nearly half as much in losses. Quality dividend-paying and defensive companies are a haven in times of uncertainty.

Many of the business in my portfolio (and in the holdings of those ETFs), have paid uninterrupted dividends for decades. 3M ($MMM), Lowe’s ($LOW), Coca-Cola ($KO), and Altria ($MO) have paid consecutive dividends for over 50 years! These companies have stood the test of time and are entrenched in their industries by providing essential goods and services. These kinds of companies generate consistent cash flows and keep healthy balance sheets, both of which are traits that allow them to weather the storm of economic uncertainty and recessionary fears continue to rise. Another benefit of investing in these companies is that we don’t have to worry about every little market movement, because these companies will keep the dividends rolling in and even growing! While the market is quickly giving up its pandemic gains, we continue build up our income through sticky dividends from quality companies.

Recessions are the greatest potential risk to a dividend portfolio. In the last 60 years, recessions are the only period in which the S&P 500 has decreased its dividend, according to Investopedia. When companies lose money, cutting the dividends are one of the easier solutions to preserve liquidity needed to pay debts, fund operations, and protect the balance sheet till profits bounce back.

A thin balance sheet, high payout ratios, and cyclical cashflows may allow for a relatively safe dividend when times are good, but these dormant risk factors can make cutting the dividend as the quickest and easiest measure for companies to curb their pain when times get tough. When looking ahead, continue to invest in companies with healthy balance sheets, strong moats/competitive advantages, and a history of paying dividends to avoid getting caught in this situation. Closely monitor your companies that appear to be more vulnerable to inflation and high interest rates. This includes companies that do not have strong pricing power, face higher input costs, and see falling demand for inessential purchases. Many consumer discretionary companies fall into this category.

A few companies that I invest in are at more risk here than others (Best Buy, Lowe’s, and Starbucks to name a few). These companies have conservative payout ratios, healthy balance sheets, and manageable debt levels that reaffirms my belief that the dividend is safe for the time being. While the market is down, it gives us long-term investors more opportunities to buy quality stocks at lower prices and higher yields while we wait this out. The upcoming quarterly earnings will give us a better outlook on how our companies our navigating this volatile environment. Stay tuned in to your holdings and take advantage of down stocks where appropriate. Lots of wealth can be made during bear markets if you stay grounded and logical in your investments!

Thank you for your support and please ask any questions below.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 5/27/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars and our weekly review where we discuss what happened in the market and our portfolio.

This week the S&P 500 broke a seven-week losing streak. Last Friday the S&P hit its lowest level since March of 2021, only to rally back a strong 6.6% this week. The NASDAQ did better with a gain of 6.8% while the DOW was at 6.2%.

All eleven sectors of the S&P finished positive with consumer discretionary leading the way with a 9.2% performance to follow its rather disappointing performance last month. The sector still down over 5% for the month of May, largely due to the terrible showing of large retailers being shocked by inflation and supply chain concerns. However, the second half of this past week saw renewed gumption from the retailers with hopes that the worst is behind us. This is evident if the performances of Best Buy (BBY), Costco (COST), Target (TGT), and Walmart (WMT) with respective gains of 16.7%, 12.2%, 8.3%, and 7.7% for the week.

Mega caps also did some work with Apple (AAPL), NVIDIA (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA) contributing to the rally with similar gains.

Through this rally, the energy sector continues to show strength and is up to almost 17% gains for the month of May. Crude oil is back to its high prices for the month.

Treasuries continued their gains for the third consecutive week this week, drawing some strength from speculation that the Fed could pause its rate hikes in September.

Overall, this was a great week! We saw some volatility in the first two days, but the market rallied strongly after the S&P managed to stay above last week’s lows. Let’s dive into the portfolio review!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $9,100 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $9,531.06. That’s a total gain of 4.74%. The account is $448.18 for the week which is a 4.93% gain, after briefly being in the negative territory last 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 -6.7% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of 4.8%! 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. The stock purchases made with this 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.

This week our annual dividend income increased by $5 at a yield of 3.94%. For my portfolio, its dividend yield may be just slightly higher than what you will see in other portfolios, however that is strategic per my time horizon. I am in my 20s and am just starting off this investment journey, so a higher dividend yield gives me greater cash flow now to reinvest which helps me realize the benefits of compounding sooner. Also, with so many positions being down, it’s hard not to experience a growing dividend yield.

Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which is good, especially in times of uneasiness. It means my portfolio won’t dip as much as the rest of the market on red days, however, it does go the other way around and I won’t have as much green on the good days. Therefore, it is good to watch your beta in terms of cyclicity. View the first chart above to see the performance of my portfolio versus the S&P 500, notice how my portfolio’s green days are not as substantial as the S&P’s but neither are my red days, that is beta at work. My beta so far has led to better returns than the market since beginning this portfolio, however, on rally weeks I underperform. To combat that, I have started adding to a levered position to raise my beta. I would like to see it in the 0.8s.

Dividends

This week we received two dividends. $1.84 from ETRACS levered dividend ETN (SMHB) and $2.45 from Starbucks (SBUX).

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. All dividends were reinvested.

Dividends received for 2022: $122.84

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $145.76

Trades

Below is a breakdown of my trades this week even while on vacation!

  • May 23rd
    • ETRACS 2xMonthly Pay Leveraged (SMHB) – added 0.18918 shares ($1.84 dividend reinvested)
  • May 24th
    • Bank of America (BAC) – added 0.5 shares at $35.50
    • Lowe’s (LOW) – added 0.1 shares at $183.80
  • May 25th
    • SCHD – added 0.131113 shares at $76.27 (recurring investment)
    • XYLD – added 0.22901 shares at $43.67 (recurring investment)
  • May 27th
    • Bank of America (BAC) – added 0..25 shares at $36.68
    • Lowe’s (LOW) – added 0.3 shares at $197.20

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!

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!

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 5/20/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars and our weekly review where we discuss what happened in the market and our portfolio.

This week I was out on vacation but still managed to monitor the market and make some buys. The S&P fell 3.1% this week following more disappointing corporate updates and data that shakes potential economic growth. The Nasdaq was down 3.8% for the week followed by the Dow which was down 2.9%.

Consumer staples and consumer discretionary segments were hit particularly hard this week as many retailers provided cautious outlooks due to cost pressures and supply chain concerns. Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), and Ross Stores (ROST) were the main players here, expect to see more of this next week as more earnings reports are published. My eyes will be on Best Buy (BBY) who had a particularly rough week following the poor performance of these retailers.

On the other hand, utilities, health care, and energy sectors ended the week green, if only by a little. There was some rebound actions throughout the week pushed mainly by a contrarian approach to our potentially oversold market with a BofA survey showing that cash levels of fund managers are at their highest since 9/11 (6.1%).

The market barely stayed out of bear market territory this week amid growth concerns fueled by stubborn inflation, supply chain issues, and a number of economic data releases that were relatively disappointing.

The Federal Reserve Chair Powell spoke on inflation and said that the Fed will be more aggressive with rate hikes if inflation doesn’t come down in an obvious way. All eyes are on inflation and that will continue to be the driving narrative behind the market’s performance.

It was a tough week and my portfolio was no exception. Let’s dive into the portfolio review now.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $8,980 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $8,901.17. That’s a mere loss of $78.83 for a total return of -0.88%. The account is down $142.75 for the week which is a 1.58% 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 -12.44% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of -0.88%! It’s tough seeing the portfolio come down from highs just a few weeks ago, but it is good that we are still beating the market by more than a 10% difference.

We added $180 in cash to the account this week. The stock purchases made with this 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.

This week our annual dividend income increased by $9 at a yield of 4.16% and passed the $1 per day milestone with an annual income of $369! For my portfolio, its dividend yield may be just slightly higher than what you will see in other portfolios, however that is strategic per my time horizon. I am in my 20s and am just starting off this investment journey, so a higher dividend yield gives me greater cash flow now to reinvest which helps me realize the benefits of compounding sooner. Also, with so many positions being down, its hard not to experience a growing dividend yield.

Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which is good, especially in times of uneasiness. It means my portfolio won’t dip as much as the rest of the market on red days, however, it does go the other way around and I won’t have as much green on the good days. Therefore, it is good to watch your beta in terms of cyclicity. View the first chart above to see the performance of my portfolio versus the S&P 500, notice how my portfolio’s green days are not as substantial as the S&P’s but neither are my red days, that is beta at work. My beta so far has led to better returns than the market since beginning this portfolio, however, on rally weeks I underperform. In order to combat that, I have started adding to a levered position to raise my beta. I would like to see it in the 0.8s.

Dividends

This week we received only one dividend. $1.44 from Texas Instruments (TXN)

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. All dividends were reinvested.

Dividends received for 2022: $118.55

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $141.47

Trades

Below is a breakdown of my trades this week even while on vacation!

  • May 16th
    • Aflac (AFL) – added 0.5 shares at $55.82
  • May 17th
    • Microsoft (MSFT) – added 0.1 shares at $265.20
    • Texas Instruments (TXN) – added 0.008306 at $173.38 ($1.44 dividend reinvestment)
  • May 18th
    • Best Buy (BBY) – added 0.25 shares at $74.84
    • Bank of America (BAC) – added 0.5 shares at $35.60
    • SCHD – added 0.131863 shares at $75.84 (recurring investment)
    • XYLD – added 0.223738 shares at $44.70 (recurring investment)
  • May 19th
    • ETRACS 2xMonthly Pay Leveraged (SMHB) – added 1 share at $9.48
  • May 20th
    • Best Buy (BBY) – added 0.75 shares at $70.07

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!

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!

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 5/13/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars and our weekly review where we discuss what happened in the market and our portfolio.

This week the downtrend continued in the markets with each of the major indices falling more than 2.0% this week. 10 of the 11 S&P sectors closed lower with 5 of them falling more than 3% (IT, consumer discretionary, financials, and real estate). Consumer staples, one of the more defensive sector, ended with a 0.3%.

Inflation readings remained high, but a better than expected core PPI reading for April revived “peak inflation” talks. The Fed is expected to remain aggressive on tightening plans to continue the fight against inflation.

High growth story stocks like Unity (U), Coinbase (COIN), and Peloton (PTON) continued to disappoint this week. This week the stable coin TerraUSD (UST) collapsed. Billions of dollars in crypto wealth were lost, shocking the whole market. UST was designed to retain a value of one US dollar at all timed but was depegged and fell to around 14 cents at the worst.

Growth concerns in the stock and crypto market, peak inflation hopes, and a general flight to safety drew Treasury yields lower this week.

Sentiment was further pressured by the S&P breaking below 4,000 briefly, Apple (AAPL) losing its title as the world’s most valuable company, and heightened volatility driven by selling. That was until a rally occurred on Friday to end the week with a much overdue bounce.

Overall, it was another tough week. However, amid this volatility, dividend stocks continue to show resilience. Let’s dive into it!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $8,800 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $8,881.09. That’s a mere gain of $81.09 for a total return of 0.92%. The account is down $45.13 for the week which is a 0.51% 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 -9.69% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of 0.92%! It’s tough seeing the portfolio come down from highs just a few weeks ago, but it is good that we are still beating the market by nearly a 10% difference.

We added $190 in cash to the account this week. The stock purchases made with this 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.

This week our annual dividend income increased by $13 at a yield of 4.07%. For my portfolio, its dividend yield may be just slightly higher than what you will see in other portfolios, however that is strategic per my time horizon. I am in my 20s and am just starting off this investment journey, so a higher dividend yield gives me greater cash flow now to reinvest which helps me realize the benefits of compounding sooner.

Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which is good, especially in times of uneasiness. It means my portfolio won’t dip as much as the rest of the market on red days, however, it does go the other way around and I won’t have as much green on the good days. Therefore, it is good to watch your beta in terms of cyclicity. View the chart above to see the performance of my portfolio versus the S&P 500, notice how my portfolio’s green days are not as substantial as the S&P’s but neither are my red days, that is beta at work. My beta so far has led to better returns than the market since beginning this portfolio, however, on rally weeks I underperform. In order to combat that, I have started adding to a levered position to raise my beta. I would like to see it in the 0.8s.

Dividends

This week we received two dividends. $1.62 from Air Products & Chemicals (APD) and $1.50 from Reality Income (O)

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. All dividends were reinvested.

Dividends received for 2022: $117.11

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $140.03

Trades

Below is a breakdown of my trades this week.

  • May 9th
    • Bank of America (BAC) – added 0.5 shares at $36.58
    • Starbucks (SBUX) – added 0.15 shares at $75.27
    • Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure (AY) – added 0.5 shares at $29.96
    • ETRACS 2xMonthly Pay Leveraged (SMHB) – added 1 share at $9.48
    • Air Products & Chemicals (APD) – added 0.006881 shares at $235.43 ($1.62 dividend reinvested)
  • May 10th
    • ETRACS 2xMonthly Pay Leveraged (SMHB) – added 1 share at $9.03
  • May 11th
    • SCHD – added 0.132714 shares at $75.35 (recurring investment)
    • XYLD – added 0.223002 shares at $44.84 (recurring investment)
    • ETRACS 2xMonthly Pay Leveraged (SMHB) – added 1 share at $9.10
  • May 12th
    • ETRACS 2xMonthly Pay Leveraged (SMHB) – added 1 share at $8.90

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!

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!

Categories
Dividend Stocks Economics Market Recap Stock Market

Monthly Market Recap – April 2022

As I started my dividend investing in September of 2021, nearly at market highs, I noticed that investing spaces on Twitter and Reddit paid much more attention to future growth prospects than healthy balance sheets or dividends. The pandemic brought a new swath of retail investors into the playing field who favored these stocks much more than the safer and slower stocks favored by dividend investors.

However, these trends don’t always last. Recessions are always a possibility. It’s just a matter of when. Now the market is dealing with the highest inflation levels since 1981 and the ground beneath us is shifting. The Fed is fighting back by rising interest rates which increases the possibility that a recession is looming around the corner.

The S&P 500 had its worst month since March of 2020, this April with a loss of 8.8%. At the end of April, the market’s year-to-date performance was -13%. Tech, a high growth sector, lead the downfall. The tech heavy NASDAQ was down 20% YTD in the end of April. The MSCI All Country World Index fell 8% for the month. Even fixed income came under pressure, with global bonds dropping 5.5% for the month.

This environment has caused growth plays to struggle and showed that quality dividend stocks are resilient. In the midst of the pandemic, massive amounts of government spending and lax monetary policies allowed investors to take advantage of extremely speculative investments in crypto, SPACs, meme stocks, and growth stocks with absurd valuations. Attracted to the potential of huge gains, investors flocked to these instruments at inopportune times (hindsight 20-20 obviously). ARKK, led by the famous Cathie Wood, was the posterchild in this environment with speculative growth holdings in companies like Tesla, Zoom, Square, Coinbase, and more.

Expectations for monetary policies have seen a major shift this year with interest rate expectations being over 2% after more 50 basis point hikes at each of the Fed’s next meetings. The Fed’s appetite for interest rate increases right now has caused investors to de-risk their portfolios. These speculative plays that have led the markets for the last year or so are now the first to feel the pain. As evident by the graph below (keep in mind the recency of my portfolio makes this graph look more dramatic than it is on the long term) a good dividend portfolio in our current environment is a much safer bet. Slow and steady wins the race.

The moral of the story is that no one can predict when the cops will come to shut down the party. Sticking to a long-term strategy that aligns with risk tolerance and goals is great for long term performance. Companies that can maintain healthy margins thanks to strong pricing power will likely be relative outperformers as the markets navigate this environment.

Now this strategy isn’t for everyone, but it works. I bet on strong dividend paying companies with a strong balance sheet and a reasonably foreseeable decent performance. These companies have stood the test of time, they have strong products, durable cash flows, and dividends that are paid regardless of market conditions.

This method of investing will never be as exciting as the strategies that led the rally through the pandemic. But their predictability, to me, is attractive. As the market continues to look risky and speculative plays perform poorly, investors will rotate into companies that can withstand a recession.

It would be better if a recession could be avoided, but no one has a crystal ball to see how this all will play out. As usual, I will stay the course and stay very comfortable and confident in holding and growing my portfolio regardless of how gloomy the market continues to look.

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends

Dividend Portfolio: 4/29/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars and our weekly review! And boy what ANOTHER rough week it was!

The S&P is down 3.3% for the week. The NASDAQ is down 3.9%, Russel is down 3.2%, and the Dow Jones is down 2.5%.

This week the market continued to feel economic pressure and also a spattering of poorly received earnings reports. Concerns about the tightening Fed policy in a low growth, high inflation environment continued to drive stocks down.

This week Apple (AAPL) alerted investors of looming higher costs due to supply chain issues for Q3. Amazon’s (AMZN) guidance Q2 revenue below expectations. Intel (INTC) also provided lower Q2 guidance during their earnings call. Overall, earnings was mixed with large losers in Teladoc (TDOC) and Tesla (TSLA) and with Meta (FB) being one of the stand out winners.

In terms of economic data releases, the Advance GDP report showed indicators of stagflation, regardless of historically low unemployment levels. Real GDP had decrease larger decreases than expected at 1.4% year over year. The GDP Chain Deflator increased by 8%. The PCE Price index jumped 0.9% for the month and 6.6% year over year.

Overall, a mixed earnings season and continued concern about recession and rising rates weighed markets down significantly this month, making this April one of the worst performing months in recent years. The Nasdaq Composite had its worst month since 2008 with a decrease of nearly 13.3%. The S&P lost 8.8%.

Thing’s were rough this month, and my portfolio was not immune from it! However, we added more than our regular deposit amount to our portfolio will continue to add while things are down. The best part about being a dividend investor is that performance is not the end-all be-all. It is nice to have capital gains, but we are in this to build income. While stocks stay down, we get to buy that income at a discount! And boy did we make some buys this week. Let’s dive into it.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $8,428 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $8,457.03. That’s a gain of mere gain of $29.03 for a total return of 0.34%. The account is down $251.25 for the week which is a 2.89% loss. In the last six weeks our portfolio has fallen from the highs of roughly 8% of gains!

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 -7.26% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of 0.34%! It’s tough seeing the portfolio come down from highs just a few weeks ago, but it is good that we are still beating the market.

We added $268 in cash to the account this week. The stock purchases made with this 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.

This week our annual dividend income decreased by $17. The reason for this decrease is that I sold my position in UWM Corporation (UWMC) this week. It was a high yield and very risky position that I was using to experiment with selling covered calls. I was not doing a great job with the calls and my position was also down over 30% when I sold. I realized that this position was not in line with my investing style of building a portfolio of strong, established, dividend paying stocks. Therefore, I sold the position, took the loss, and rolled that money over into other positions which you will see in the trade break down below.

For my portfolio, it’s dividend yield may be just slightly higher than what you will see in other portfolios, however that is strategic per my time horizon. I am in my 20s and am just starting off this investment journey, so a higher dividend yield gives me greater cash flow now to reinvest which helps me realize the benefits of compounding sooner.

Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which is good, especially in times of uneasiness. It means my portfolio won’t dip as much as the rest of the market on red days, however, it does go the other way around and I won’t have as much green on the good days. Therefore, it is good to watch your beta in terms of cyclicity. View the chart above to see the performance of my portfolio versus the S&P 500, notice how my portfolio’s green days are not as substantial as the S&P’s but neither are my red days, that is beta at work. My beta so far has led to better returns than the market since beginning this portfolio, however, on rally weeks I underperform. In order to combat that, I have started adding to a levered position to raise my beta. I would like to see it in the 0.8s.

Dividends

This week we received five dividends. $0.74 from McCormick (MKC), $2.25 from XYLD, $1.35 from Comcast (CMCSA, click here to read the article I wrote on their quarterly earnings call), $2.34 from EOG Resources (EOG), and $4.55 from Altria (MO).

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. All dividends were reinvested.

Dividends received for 2022: $105.23

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $128.15

Trades

Below is a breakdown of my trades this week.

As noted above, we closed our UWMC position and used those funds to invest in many other down positions on Wednesday

  • April 25th
    • ETRACS 2x ETN (SMHB) – added 1 share at $9.80
    • Cummins (CMI) – added 0.15 shares at $193.33
    • Starbucks (SBUX) – added 0.25 shares at $77.40
    • 3M (MMM) – added 0.15 shares at $146.93
    • McCormick (MKC) – added 0.007229 shares at $102.37 ($0.74 dividend reinvested)
  • April 26th
    • UWM Corporation (UWMC) – sold all 155.957117 shares at $3.57
    • ETRACS 2x ETN (SMHB) – added 4 share at $10.07
    • XYLD – added 1 share  at $47.44
    • AT&T (T) – added 10 shares at $19.37
    • 3M (MMM) – added 1 share at $143.36
    • Starbucks (SBUX) – added 0.25 shares at $76.48
    • Intel (INTC) – added 2 shares at $46.08
    • Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure (AY) – added 1 share at $30.89
    • XYLD – added 0.04772 shares at $47.15 ($2.25 dividend reinvested)
  • April 27th
    • Texas Instruments (TXN) – added 0.25 shares at $163.76
    • Comcast (CMCSA) – added 0.031513 shares at $42.84 ($1.35 dividend reinvested)
    • SCHD – added 0.129289 shares at $77.35 (recurring investment)
    • XYLD – added 0.210275 shares at $47.56 (recurring investment)
  • April 28th
    • Comcast (CMCSA) – added 1 share at $40.89
  • April 29th
    • Intel (INTC) – added 1 share at $44.10
    • Realty Income (O) – added 0.1 shares at $71.00

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!

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!

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 4/14/2022 Week in Review

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars and our weekly review! And boy what a week it was! We made some adjustments to our energy holdings and crossed our first $100 in dividends!

We lost a day of trading this week due to Good Friday. Having the day off was a good ending to a bad week! The S&P lost 2.1%, Nasdaq 2.6%, the Dow was down 0.8%, with Russell making the only gain of 0.5%.

The information technology, health care, financials, and communication services sectors were the S&P’s biggest losers. Downward movement in the information technology and communication sectors were linked to moves in the Treasury market. The 10-year yield went up 12 basis points this week despite economic discussion that inflation was peaking. That discussion was followed by two days of declining rates following big CPI and PPI numbers for March.

The financial sector was down particularly because of earnings missed by JPM and WFC. Other banks for the most part surpassed expectations.

Airline stocks showed strength this week with AAL raising their Q1 revenue guidance and DAL with earnings that beat expectations. JETS also went up 8% this week.

Aside from airlines doing well, the materials, industrials, energy, and consumer staples sectors of the S&P were positive with gains all under 1%.

Now let’s move on to reviewing our portfolio’s performance for the week.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $8,020 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $8,494.4. That’s a gain of $474.42 for a total return of 5.92%. The account is down $48.08 for the week which is a 0.56% 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 -1.41% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of 5.92%! Let’s keep up this good progress with smart adds to the portfolio.

We added $120 in cash to the account this week. The stock purchases made with this 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.

This week our annual dividend income increased by $20. My portfolio’s dividend yield may be just slightly higher than what you will see in other portfolios, however that is strategic per my time horizon. I am in my 20s and am just starting off this investment journey, so a higher dividend yield gives me greater cash flow now to reinvest which helps me realize the benefits of compounding sooner.

Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which is good, especially in times of uneasiness. It means my portfolio won’t dip as much as the rest of the market on red days, however, it does go the other way around and I won’t have as much green on the good days. Therefore, it is good to watch your beta in terms of cyclicity. View the chart above to see the performance of my portfolio versus the S&P 500, notice how my portfolio’s green days are not as substantial as the S&P’s but neither are my red days, that is beta at work. My beta so far has led to better returns than the market since beginning this portfolio, however, on rally weeks I underperform. In order to combat that, I have started adding to a levered position to raise my beta. I would like to see it in the 0.8s.

Dividends

This week we received two dividends. $13.77 from UWMC and $3.17 from BBY

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. All dividends were reinvested (except for BBY, that will be reinvested on Monday).

Dividends received for 2022: $90.19

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $113.11

Trades

Below is a breakdown of my trades this week.

On Wednesday I did some restructuring of the portfolio. I sold my whole position in EOG and spun a majority of those into a new utilities position in AY. There are a couple of reasons I did this. The IPCC report came out this week and is pretty grim about the future of our planet. It makes it clear that the devastating impacts of a climate crisis are occurring and the opportunity to curb terrible outcomes are already slipping through our fingers. The report says that greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 to limit global warming close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as targeted by the Paris Agreement. Mitigating climate change continues to a growing and ever important focus for governments, business, and people.

Though the Ukraine conflict is where the world’s attention is at right now. I still believe that oil will be a good business model in the short term, thus I am continuing to hold CVX, but I believe that adoption of more “green” policies are inevitable and will come sooner or later. When this happens, oil companies will come under pressure and renewable energy companies will benefit. It will be a long transition, possibly over decades. But I would rather build positions on renewable energy companies now instead of later. For that reason, I sold my EOG position and rolled it into a new position in AY, a sustainable infrastructure company with a majority of its business in renewable energy assets (solar, water, and wind).

  • April 11th
    • T – added 2 shares at 19.59
    • SMHB – added 1 share at $10.99
    • UWMC – added 3.251476 shares through $13.77 dividend reinvested
  • April 12th
    • UWMC – added 3 shares at $3.97
    • MMM – added 0.1 shares at $148.70
  • April 13th
    • EOG – sold position (3.113613 shares) for a 45% gain
    • AY – new position, bought 6 shares at $33.56
    • BAC – added 2 shares at $38.86
    • T – added 5 shares at $19.44
    • SCHD – added 0.126727 shares at $78.91 (recurring investment)
    • XYLD – added 0.201191 shares at $49.70 (recurring investment)
  • April 14th
    • SBUX – added 0.25 shares at $79.68
    • UWMC – added 3 shares at $3.90
    • SMHB – added 1 share at $10.94

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!

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 have a happy and safe Easter!

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 4/8/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars and our weekly review!

March FOMC minutes came out this week and confirmed expected balance sheet reductions and future rate increases possibly being 50 basis point jumps or more. Following this, Treasury yields of all timeframes jumped with the 10 year moving up 34 basis points and the 2 year moving up 10 basis points. Longer term notes were pushed even higher by the March ISM Non-Manufacturing Index which showed the Prices Paid Index hit its second highest reading ever.

Essentially, the Fed news harkens concerns about the central bank potentially making policy mistakes that could sent the economy into recession, which would lower earnings prospects and valuations. Growth stock valuations were pressured by this and rapid rise in rates this week.

Having paid very close attention to rates this week, I had a good conversation with @ScoreBDInvestor on twitter who ended up doing a great write up about TIPX and treasury inflation protected securities. It might be timely to read into and consider adding it as an inflationary hedge.

At the end of it all, the S&P and Nasdaq headed for their first weekly loses in four weeks. The DJIA lost 0.3%, NASDAQ 3.9%, Russell 4.6%, and the S&P 1.3% with 5 of the 11 sectors making gains. Biggest losers included information technology, consumer discretionary, and communication services while the biggest gainers were the energy, healthcare, and consumer staples sectors.

Now let’s move on to reviewing our portfolio’s performance for the week.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $7,900 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $8,449.48. That’s a gain of $549.81 for a total return of 6.96%. The account is up $8.90 for the week which is a 0.11% 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 up 0.74% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of 6.96%! Let’s keep up this good progress with smart adds to the portfolio.

We added $120 in cash to the account this week. The stock purchases made with this 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.

This week our annual dividend income increased by $9. My portfolio’s dividend yield may be just slightly higher than what you will see in other portfolios, however that is strategic per my time horizon. I am in my 20s and am just starting off this investment journey, so a higher dividend yield gives me greater cash flow now to reinvest which helps me realize the benefits of compounding sooner.

Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which is good, especially in times of uneasiness. It means my portfolio won’t dip as much as the rest of the market on red days, however, it does go the other way around and I won’t have as much green on the good days. Therefore, it is good to watch your beta in terms of cyclicity. View the chart above to see the performance of my portfolio versus the S&P 500, notice how my portfolio’s green days are not as substantial as the S&P’s but neither are my red days, that is beta at work. My beta so far has led to better returns than the market since beginning this portfolio, however, on rally weeks I underperform. In order to combat that, I have started adding to a levered position to raise my beta. I would like to see it in the 0.8s.

Dividends

This week we did not receive any dividends, however a handful of positions did announce dividends in the upcoming month or two, so our below dividend graph is updated for those.

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. All dividends were reinvested (except for KO, that will be reinvested on Monday).

Dividends received for 2022: $73.25

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $96.17

Trades

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week (it was a light week):

  • April 4th
    • SBUX – added 0.5 shares at $86.62
    • SMHB – added 0.5 shares at $11.64
    • UWMC – sold covered call $5 4/14 for a $2 premium
  • April 5th
    • SMHB – added 1 share at $11.48
  • April 6th
    • SBUX – added 0.25 shares at $82.68
    • SCHD – added 0.126568 shares at $79.01 (recurring investment)
    • XYLD – added 0.202268 shares at $49.44 (recurring investment)
    • SMHB – add 1 share at $11.25
  • April 7th
    • SMHB – added 1 share at $10.94

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!

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!

Categories
Market Recap Monthly Recap

Monthly Market Recap – March 2022

The first quarter of 2022 has been quite volatile for markets. Concerns about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the need for faster interest rate hikes to combat inflation weighed heavily on both equities and bonds. The first half of March looked rough as the S&P lost over 4% before ripping up to an overall gain of 3.8% for the month. As of the end of March, the stock markets have now recovered their losses since the Russia-Ukraine conflict began in February.

The end of March rally brought the S&P’s YTD loss to about 5% despite continuing concerns about inflation and hawkish monetary policy.

The narrative that inflation was transitory has definitely changed since the beginning of the year. The start of the war in Ukraine and the resulting commodity supply shock makes the decision of choosing growth or taming inflation for central banks an even more difficult one to make. Despite the uncertainties related to this conflict and its effect on economies, central banks have so far shown that inflation is the more pressing topic. With rising cost of energy, housing, goods, and food (fastest inflation rate in 40 years) the Fed raised interest rates by 0.25% this month for the first time since 2018, indicating a shift in policy’s stance from economic growth to controlling inflation. Fed members expect regular increases at most of the Fed meetings through the rest of this year. Other members have even stated that they support stronger rate increases.

In response, interest rates across the bond yield curve have shot up, with the 10-year Treasury notes jumping from 1.8% to 2.5% this month. The latest inflation reading came in at 7.9% suggesting yields could keep pushing higher if prices don’t show some downward pressure.

As yields rise, bonds and T-bill prices fall, thus this month’s sharp jump in rates has caused Treasuries to post their worst quarter since 1972. If inflation continues exceeding the Fed’s target of 2%, then bonds could remain under pressure longer as investors demand higher yields. With most longer-term bond yields sitting around 2.5%, well below the rate of inflation, real returns remain negative.

Regardless of the inflation situation, the US job market showed significant numbers this month with the release of the February jobs report coming in better than expected with nonfarm payrolls easily beating the consensus of forecasts. Unemployment dropped to 3.8% and the labor force participation rate moved up to 62.3% Wage growth was at 5.1% year-on-year.

This month, congress passed a spending bill to fund the federal government through September. This combined with last Decembers $2.5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling significantly lessens the risk of a looming financial crisis.

Overall, the outcome of the war in Ukraine remains uncertain. If tension escalate, we could see further pricing pressure on commodities and energy which would only serve to worsen the state of inflation and supply chain constraints that were already poorly managed through the pandemic.

However, geopolitical issues, as we have seen with the market’s bounce this month, have a harsh but quick impact on the markets. As we discussed in last month’s update, geopolitical events, on average, take 22 days for the market to bottom out and then 47 days to recover. This event took about a month. This is way its important to not panic-sell and not worry about the volatile ups and downs of the market in times like these.

It is important to have a constructive approach. One that emphasizes keeping a diversified portfolio of financially sound and strong companies that have long term potential. As a dividend investor, the best dividend paying stocks usually contain those traits. Holding dividend stocks of strong, established, tested, and successful companies makes it easy to buy when the price is down, earn more dividend income while the yields are high, and reap rewards of safe a steady income stream to support yourself with or use to grow your positions.

While it is impossible to predict what will happen in the coming months, I can confidently predict that the collection of businesses I hold in my portfolio will continue to deliver dependable dividends and make capital gains over the long term. Stay true to the strategy and I will check back with another update next month!