Tag: Investing

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Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 3/25/2022 Week in Review

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars and our weekly review!

We saw a good amount of volatility in the market this week. The indices all ended higher. The S&P 500 tugged with its 200 day simple moving average since last week but was able to end above it this week hitting a six week high.

10 of the 11 sectors ended positive this week with healthcare being the only one to record a loss of 0.2%. The energy sector gained 7.4% and was mostly supported by crude oil which gained 10.5% for the week. The Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to keep key commodities at elevated prices.

This week Biden made appearances in Europe and Chevron received clearance to resume operations in Venezuela.

Oil and defense positions continue to crush it, but the market as whole has had two solid weeks in a row. Let’s see if it keeps up next week! Moving on to our performance now.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $7,540 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $8,087.95. That’s a gain of $547.95 for a total return of 7.27%. The account is up $101.64 for the week which is a 1.27% 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 1.97% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of 7.27%! Let’s keep up this good progress with smart adds to the portfolio.

We added $120 to the account this week. This week I did some reshuffling within my portfolio. I sold my positions in PB and ALL and moved that money into a new $BAC position. I did this because I don’t think ALL is set up to adjust to the changing channel environment within the insurance industry. I also believe that rising rates will be good for banks, however I wanted exposure to a larger, nationwide bank. I sold my CAH position and rolled it into an MRK position which I believe is better positioned to benefit from the growing healthcare industry. I also sold my WBA and SJM positions in order to consolidate my positions within the consumer staples industry. I used those funds to add to MRK and MO. Lastly, I also sold my small HD position simple because I felt that I was starting that position at too high an entry point. I think with pandemic easement, rising rates, and growing inflation that HD and LOW will experience some downside which is when I plan to enter.

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 dropped by $9 as a result of the AT&T dividend cut following the Warner spinoff planned for next month. Our dividend yield decreased by 0.22% and our beta increase by 0.01. 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 am going to start 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: one from HD for $0.57, this was not reinvested, and the other from LMT for $5.64 to be reinvested on Monday.

Dividends received for 2022: $63.48

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $86.40

Trades

As detailed above, we did some restructuring in the portfolio this week. We also had some option activity.

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • March 21st
    • APD – added 0.3 shares at $234.80
    • XYLD – added 0.20491 shares at $48.80 (recurring investment)
    • SMHB – added 1 share at $11.22
  • March 22nd
    • ALL – sold 2 shares at $137.10
    • PB – sold 2 shares at $71.45
    • CAH – sold 2.018676 at $57.48
    • WBA – sold 2.029713 at $47.23
    • SJM – sold 1.511712 at $129.87
    • BAC – bought 8 shares at $43.93
    • MRK – bought 3 shares at $79.36
    • MO – added 2 shares at $53.12
    • MKC – added 1 share at $96.10
  • March 23rd
    • HD – sold 0.5 shares at $317.78
    • MMM – added 0.4 shares at $148.15
    • CMCSA – added 1 share at 46.82
    • O – added 0.3 shares at $67.03
    • UWMC – added 3 shares at $4.55
    • SCHD – added 0.127976 shares at $78.14 (recurring investment)
  • March 24th
    • UWMC – opened a $4.5 4/14 covered call for $18 premium
    • BBY – added 0.4 shares at $96.05
  • March 25th
    • UWMC – closed position at $12
    • SNDL – opened $0.5 4/8 put position at $3
    • O – added 0.5 shares at $67.56

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
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 3/11/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars!

The market ended red this week after finding itself unable to climb out of the whole that high oil prices had put it in, despite the fact that oil prices eventually cooled off after flirting with $130 per barrel. The initial spike to $130 was in anticipation of bans on Russian energy imports. The US banned it and the UK and EU said they would phase out of Russian energy imports this year. WTI futures ended the week at $109.

Even though oil is dropping, our economic environment is still one of high inflation. Total CPI for the year is up 7.9%

The Russia-Ukraine situation continues to keep markets volatile. Ceasefire talks continue to make no progress. Treasury yields spiked, Nickel soared, AMZN announced a stock split, and the S&P ended fell 2.9% for an overall eventful week! Let’s see how we fared.

Portfolio Value

Last week our portfolio soared while the S&P lost more than 1% due to our positions in oil and defense. This week was another red week for the market, and this time our portfolio was not immune to those actions.

To date, I have invested $7,190 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $7,399.46 . That’s a gain of $209.46 for a total return of 2.91%. The account is down $177.44 for the week which is a 2.34% 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 5.64% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of 2.91%! Let’s keep up this good progress with smart adds to the portfolio.

We added $170 to the account this week. My buys are detailed 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 activity raised our annual dividend income by $5. Our dividend yield increased by 0.08% and our beta stayed flat. 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 I like, 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.

Dividends

This week we received dividends from 3 positions: $3.90 from AMGN, $0.62 from MSFT, and $1.42 from CVX. All dividends were reinvested. We are expecting another dividend from WBA for $0.96 to hit our account on Monday.

Dividends received for 2022: $51.36

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $74.28

Trades

This week I did some portfolio reorganizing. I liquidated my position on my Canadian companies (CNQ and TD) because I decided that extra tax wasn’t worth it in the long run for me. Selling those positions allowed me a realize some decent gains on CNQ and put that money elsewere.

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • March 7th
    • SBUX – added 0.2 shares at $87.85
    • APD – added 0.1 shares at $224.00
    • O – added 0.5 shares at $65.32
    • CNQ – sold position at $59.71 per share for a 40% gain
    • TD – sold position at $76.39 per share for a 6% gain
    • PB – bought 2 shares at $71.62 (new position from the CNQ & TD proceeds)
    • CMI – added 0.2 shares at $191.80
  • March 8th
    • APD – added 0.2 shares at $218.35
    • AMGN – dividend of $3.90 reinvested
  • March 9th
    • XYLD – added 0.209556 shares at $47.72 (recurring investment)
    • SCHD – added 0.130074 shares at $76.88 (recurring investment)
  • March 10th
    • BBY – added 0.5 shares at $98.20
    • MSFT – dividend of $0.62 reinvested
    • CVX – dividend of $1.42 reinvested
  • March 11th
    • BBY – added 0.1 shares at $97.30

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
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 3/4/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars!

The market ended red this week after rocketing oil prices dampened risk sentiment driven by the worsening situation in Ukraine. The Nasdaq dropped 2.8% and the S&P dropped 1.3%. Oil was responsible for the 9.3% gain in the S&P’s energy sector, with utilities, real estate, and defense sectors also making gains. Financial, information technology, communication services, and consumer discretionary sectors were the laggards.

Russian forces attacked civilian areas in Ukraine and seized and shot at an important nuclear power plant. Sanctions have not slowed down Putin’s mission and two rounds of peace talks have appeared to make no beneficial progress.

Fed Chair Powell clarified that the central bank supports a 25 bp rate hike later this month. A 50 bp hike is still possible in the future, but our attempts to fight inflation are significantly weakened due to raising oil prices and the geo-political environment we find ourselves in.

Portfolio Value

Though it was a red week for the markets, we had one of our best weeks to date with LMT and our oil positions leading the way. To date, I have invested $7,020 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $7,425.73 . That’s a gain of $405.73 for a total return of 5.78%. The account is up $238.78 for the week which is a 3.32% 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 2.84% whereas our portfolio has an overall return of 5.78%! Let’s keep up this good progress with smart adds to the portfolio.

We added $270 to the account this week. My buys are detailed 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 company names in blue are stocks that have been previously picked as a stock pick. I use a stock screener to find potentially undervalued stocks with safe and growing dividends. You can find last month’s watchlist here, going forward I will be doing heavy DD on monthly stock pick instead of multiple. Keep your eyes open for the first one on MMM in the coming weeks!

This week our activity raised our annual dividend income by $16. Our dividend yield decreased by 0.03% and our beta stayed flat. 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 help me realize the benefits of compounding sooner. Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which I like, 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 below 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.

Dividends

This week we received dividends from 6 positions: $0.70 from REYN, $1.49 from SJM, $0.40 from AFL, $1.10 from INTC, $1.37 from XYLD, and $0.65 from CMI.

Dividends received for 2022: $44.46

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $67.39

Trades

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • March 1st
    • UWMC – added 2 shares at $4.05
    • T – added 1 share at $23.47
    • APD – added 0.2 shares at 231.15
    • SJM – dividend of $1.49 reinvested
    • AFL – dividend of $0.40 reinvested
    • INTC – dividend of $1.10 reinvested
  • March 2nd
    • BBY – added 0.2 shares at 98.45
    • UWMC – added 1 share at $4.56
    • UWMC – sold a $5 call ¾ for $2 premium
    • XYLD – added 0.207695 shares at $48.15 (recurring investment)
    • SCHD – added 0.128535 shares at $77.80 (recurring investment)
    • SBUX – added 1 share at $92.68
    • XYLD – dividend of $1.37 reinvested
  • March 3rd
    • UWMC – closed covered call position for $1
    • CMI – dividend of $0.65 reinvested
  • March 4th
    • UWMC – sold $5.5 call 3/25 for $4
    • T – added 2 shares at $23.77

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
Economics Monthly Recap Stock Market

Monthly Market Recap – February 2022

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The S&P 500 lost another 3% in February 2022, as headlines quickly pivoted from inflation and interest rate concerns to the dangerous situation unfolding in Ukraine as Russia’s military began its invasion on February 24th.

Some investors are understandably anxious about how these geopolitical tensions will end. Europe is experiencing its largest ground war since WWII and Russia holds more nuclear warheads than any nation in the world, so times are, without a doubt, grim.

From purely an economic standpoint, the numbers aren’t that scary. Russia and Ukrain make up less than 2% of worldwide GDP, and global banks have less than $100B of exposure to Russia. To help make put that number into perspective, as of September 2021, the largest 15 US banks hold a combined total of $13.19 trillion in assets. Per the FDIC, qualifying community banks are required to have a leverage ratio of greater than 9%, which means the top 15 US banks have roughly $1.18 trillion in equity capital that can be used to eat credit losses.

It is increasingly likely that this conflict escalates into a larger-scale European clash or a recession-inducing energy crisis as Russia pumps about 12% of the worlds oil and supplies over 40% of the EU’s natural gas imports.

Forecasting how this event plays out is impossible, but if history is any guide, U.S. stocks take most geopolitical events in stride. LPL research featured in a blog post a review of major geopolitical events starting with Pearl Harbor. On average, the S&P 500 experienced a total decline of 5% and bottomed after 22 days followed by an average recovery time of 47 days. Thank you to @GenExDividend on twitter for sharing this information.

Vanguard did a separate analysis of geopolitical events but arrived at the same conclusion: sell-offs related to these risks are typically short term.

There’s always the chance that history does not repeat itself. But fortunately, only about 1% of S&P 500 companies’ sales come from Russia and Ukraine. Few American-based businesses should experience a substantial financial hit as a result of these conflicts. Some business are benefiting, as evident in the oil and defense sectors ($CVX and $LMT are my most notable holdings in this aspect).

Recently, numerous countries have announced plans to invest more in armed defenses, Russia is a loose-cannon when it comes to cyber-attacks, and oil and gas prices are surging which could encourage more energy independence via more oil/gas production or renewable resources within the US. If you’re looking to benefit off of the conflict, I recommend looking to stocks involved in oil, energy, defense, and cybersecurity for those reasons.

That said, war still introduces various risks to the world’s economy, including the potential for a long term energy crisis. With global inflation running high, a restriction of the world’s energy supply from Russia would only serve to worsen inflation. High oil prices affect everything from transportation and manufacturing and utilities. It is very likely that we will see a period of sustained inflation. This hurts consumer purchasing power and slows growth. This also increases the pressure on the Federal Reserve to stabilized prices by lifting interest rates and shrinking balance sheets, both of which are actions that the Fed have committed to throughout this year. The Fed needs to walk a fine line of using these actions to cool the economy while also being weary that doing too much can cause a recession.

From high inflation, to Fed actions, to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, investors will always have to be ready for these risks. However, a calm approach to a well diversified portfolio is more than enough for simple investors, like myself, to ride out any crisis with positive returns given a long enough holding period.

This is why I like dividends. Companies that pay dividends consistently (through the good and bad times) are companies that are built to last. They tend to have strong cash flows, healthy balance sheets, wide economic moats, safe debt levels, etc. While not all dividend paying stocks have these traits, I believe through research and screening we have built a portfolio of companies that embody most, if not all, of those characteristics.

As Warren Buffett says, “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing”. Every time I see a dividend hit my account, I am reminded about the durability of my positions. Stick to the plan and you will succeed!

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 2/11/2022 Week in Review

Photo by Brett Jordan on Pexels.com

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars!

We have survived another red week in the market with most indexes posting a larger than 1% loss for the week meanwhile our account ended higher by 0.5%!

Every week I write an update on the dividend portfolio as we build it so that we can track its progress. I will give an overview of what the portfolio is invested in, its value, the dividends received, trades made, and any news or business announcements that may be of interest to our positions.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $6,100 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $6,340.48. That’s a gain of $240.48 for a total return of 3.94%. The account is up $32.75 for the week which is a 0.52% 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 0.83%! Let’s keep up this good progress with smart adds to the portfolio.

We added $165 to the account this week. A significant chunk of that money added was put towards adding buys in CMI, a stock from our monthly watchlist.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio as tracked through simplysafedividends.com. I use that site for tracking forecasted dividend income, yield, annual income, 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. Usually, a chunk of my buys throughout the week are buys from my monthly stock picks. You can read about February’s stock picks here. I use a stock screener to find potentially undervalued stocks with safe and growing dividends. All stock picks (for this month and previous months) are highlighted in blue.

This week our activity lowered our annual dividend income by $6. Our dividend yield decreased by 0.23% and our beta remained flat. My portfolio’s dividend yield may be just slightly higher than 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 help me realize the benefits of compounding sooner. Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which I like, 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.

This week I did some reorganizing of a couple of oil/energy positions to better consolidate the money I have invested in those segments. You can see those trades below.

Dividends

This week we received one dividend from EPD for $2.79 that will be reinvested tomorrow.

Dividends received for 2022: $33.56

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $56.48

Trades

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • February 7th
    • UWMC – sold 1 $5 2/18 covered call for a $5 premium
  • February 8th
    • T – added 1 share at $23.96
  • February 9th
    • XYLD – added 0.202454 shares at $49.139 (recurring investment)
    • SCHD – added 0.125395 shares at $79.75 (recurring investment)
  • February 10th
    • CMI – bought 0.45 shares at $225.78 (new position)
    • UWMC – added 1 share at $4.66
  • February 11th
    • MMP – sold 4 shares at $48.13 (closed position)
    • AQN – sold 3.030818 shares at $14.13 (closed position)
    • NEE – bought 3 shares at $75.66 (new position started from MMP and AQN sells)
    • T – added 1 share at $24.33
    • UWMC – added 1 share at $4.44

Noteworthy News

This section of the post will identify some headlines that may be of import to our positions. If they are important enough, we will also call out in the posts if the news calls for actions to readjust our portfolio.

Unfortunately, I was so busy this week that I did not follow news on positions, so I have nothing to share here. Hopefully, I’ll have some content for this section next week!

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
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 2/4/2022 Week in Review

Photo by Burak Kebapci on Pexels.com

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars!

This week was a tad better than last with all indexes posting some minor gains. Data highlights this week included some strong job reports and rising treasury yields to finish us strong for the week.

Unfortunately, my portfolio didn’t fare so well and we will get into why! Every week I write an update on the dividend portfolio as we build it so that we can track its progress. I will give an overview of what the portfolio is invested in, its value, the dividends received, trades made, and any news or business announcements that may be of interest to our positions.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $5,935 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $6,120.91. That’s a gain of $185.91 for a total return of 3.13%. The account is down $61.98 for the week which is a flat 1% 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 up only 1.01%. Let’s keep up this good progress with smart adds to the portfolio.

We added $250 to the account this week. A significant chunk of that money added was put towards my position in 3M as you will see further down.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio as tracked through simplysafedividends.com. I use that site for tracking forecasted dividend income, yield, annual income, 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. Usually, a chunk of my buys throughout the week are buys from my monthly stock picks. You can read about January’s stock picks here (I know I am late but February’s picks will be here soon!). I use a stock screener to find potentially undervalued stocks with safe and growing dividends. All stock picks (for this month and previous months) are highlighted in blue.

This week our activity raised our annual dividend income by $14. Our dividend yield increased by 0.11% and our beta remained flat. My portfolio’s dividend yield may be just slightly higher than 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 help me realize the benefits of compounding sooner. Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which I like, 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.

This week I just had to buy the dip on 3M following their poorly received earnings report.  MMM reported $2.31 EPS beating the estimates by $0.29. Revenue has been relatively flat for the company for the last three years, yet the price has been declining. That seems unreasonable to me and this substantial dip gave me a good opportunity to buy!

Also, this week I added one share to my AT&T position following their update. T announced that they are cutting the dividend by 47% and are structuring their Warner Bros. deal as a spinoff instead of an exchange offer. The 47% dividend cut still keeps shares over a 4% dividend yield which is still attractive. The spinoff deal also will give shareholders 0.24 shares in the new entity for every share of T they own. As an investor who has only recently started building a position in T, this is great news. My position is only down 2%, my dividend yield is still strong following the cut, and I get a new (and fairly costless) position in the new WBD stock. I will keep watching for opportunities to add to T before the spinoff.

Both AT&T and 3M are both prior watchlist picks from last October, you can read that article here.

Aside from those two reasonable moves, I made more moves with UWMC. Shortly after starting this position it became the best position in my portfolio. It has quickly become my worst holding now, down 25%. I keep adding on the dips. I think long term, as long as leadership play their cards right to fix the float, UWMC will be a homerun. However, it must be watched extremely closely to make sure steps are being taken to get us there. I will read thoroughly their next earnings report and decide if an exit may be smart. But for now, we sit, wait, and collect the dividends and covered call premiums.

Dividends

This week we received dividends from MFA for $2.86, T for $5.72, VZ for $2.56, and XYLD for $0.96.

Dividends received for 2022: $9.24

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $53.69

Trades

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • January 31st  
    • MMM – added 1 share at $163.79
    • TD – added $0.59 from dividend reinvestment at $80.08
  • February 1st
    • T – added 1 share at $24.30
    • UWMC – added 4 shares at $4.88
    • VZ – added $2.56 from dividend reinvestment at $53.56
    • T – added $5.72 from dividend reinvestment at $24.24
    • XYLD – added $0.96 from dividend reinvestment at $49.19
  • February 2nd
    • XYLD – added 0.203294 shares at $49.19 (recurring investment)
    • SCHD – added 0.125826 shares at $79.47 (recurring investment)
    • CMCSA – $0.25 dividend reinvested at $45.55
  • February 3rd
    • UWMC – added 6 shares at $4.40

Noteworthy News

This section of the post will identify some headlines that may be of import to our positions. If they are important enough, we will also call out in the posts if the news calls for actions to readjust our portfolio.

Last week had tons of news to share, and now this week I could not find anything worthy of sharing! Lots of earnings again for our positions but nothing bad or mind blowing!

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
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 1/28/2021 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars! Whew what a week!

This week we saw a lot of volatility in the market. The week started rough as expectations of the FOMC meeting mid-week kept investors on their toes. That meeting confirmed the anticipated rate hikes and fight against inflation, with the first increase expected to come in March. Following this, the market showed a little strength followed by further decline on Thursday. Friday ends higher bringing the indexes to slightly positive for the week.

Moving on from the market, every week I write an update on the dividend portfolio as we build it so that we can track its progress. I will give an overview of what the portfolio is invested in, its value, the dividends received, trades made, and any news or business announcements that may be of interest to our positions.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $5,685 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $5,963.21. That’s a gain of $278.21 for a total return of 4.89%. The account is up $102.17 for the week which is a 1.74% gain.

We started building this portfolio on 9/27/2021 and have already built into a significant amount of diversity. That diversity has made our portfolio less volatile than the rest of the market, so we did not end the week as high as some of the indexes did.

We added $165 to the account this week. A significant chunk of that money added was put towards adding to positions in Best Buy and Allstate as you will see further down.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio as tracked through simplysafedividends.com. I use that site for tracking forecasted dividend income, yield, annual income, 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. Usually, a chunk of my buys throughout the week are buys from my monthly stock picks. You can read about January’s stock picks here. I use a stock screener to find potentially undervalued stocks with safe and growing dividends. All stock picks (for this month and previous months) are highlighted in blue.

This week our activity lowered our annual dividend income by $2. I did some reorganizing and liquidated a position in favor of building others, this lowered out annual income but raised our forecasted income significantly due to better growth. Our dividend yield decreased by 0.12% and our beta went up by 0.01. My portfolio’s dividend yield may be just slightly higher than 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 help me realize the benefits of compounding sooner. Our beta usually hovers right around the mid 0.6s which I like, 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.

Dividends

This week we received dividends from CMCSA for $0.25 and from EOG for $2.30.

Dividends received for January 2022: $18.66

Year-To-Date Dividends: $41.59

This week many of our positions announced next dividends and a couple of them showed increases.

  • SJM announced their next dividend of $0.99 with no change.
  • XYLD announced their next variable dividend of $0.4808. 
  • INTC announced a 5% increase to a dividend of $0.365.
  • CVX announced a 6% increase to a dividend of $1.42.
  • MMP announced their next dividend of $1.0375 with no change.
  • CMCSA announced a 8% increase to a dividend of $0.27.

Trades

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • January 25th
    • MFA – sold 26 shares at $4.31.
    • BBY – added 1 share at $98.11
    • ALL – added 0.5 shares at $119.32
  • January 26th
    • XYLD – added 0.208013 shares at $48.07 (recurring investment)
    • SCHD – added 0.127944 shares at $78.16 (recurring investment)
    • CMCSA – $0.25 dividend reinvested at $45.55
  • January 27th
    • CMCSA – Added 1 share at $47.06
    • INTC – added 1 share at $48.11

Noteworthy News

This section of the post will identify some headlines that may be of import to our positions. If they are important enough, we will also call out in the posts if the news calls for actions to readjust our portfolio.

Other than just the general state of the market I have a few updates for us.

Lots of our positions had earnings reports this week. I will give a brief summary of each below:

  • CMCSA: Peacock has increased their monthly active users to 24.5 million, Comcast projects this to 35 million by 2024. Comcast outperformed expectations. They reported $0.77 earnings per share on $30.336 billion in revenue beating EPS expectations by 4 cents. This earnings is up 37.5% from Q4 of 2020. NBCU revenue jumped 25.6% and the media segment jumped 8.4% despite a $559 million loss related to Peacock. Peacock lost $1.7 billion in 2021. Other segments of business such as theme parks and Universal  performed well. Looking ahead, Comcast states they will remain focused on organic growth opportunities and increasing the capacity of their network and broad-band experience by producing more premium content with multiple ways of accessing it and expanding the reach of their technology platforms. They are confident in increasing the dividend for the 14th consecutive year.
  • MO: Altria’s earning release matched up with expectations. EPS came in at $1.09 which increased 10.1% year over year. Net revenues dipped 0.8% to $6.25 billion due to lacking performance in the wine segment as a result of the timing of the wine business sale. Revenues were up 0.6% after deducting excise tax. Smokeable and Oral products experienced net revenue gains. For the year of 2021, MO bought back 35.7 million shares which is about half way through their buy back plan expecting to end by December of 2022. Expectations for 2022 are looking to be stable.
  • INTC: Intel posted record 4Q earnings but forecasted 1Q earnings to be short of expectations due to supply chain issues. Shares fell about 3% following the earnings. 1Q EPS is projected to be $0.80 compared to the expected $0.86. Gross margin forecast fell to 52%, still within the previously expected range. Gross margin is under pressure due to the high capital expenditures Intel is pursuing, these expenditures show the company is building operations needed in order to meet better positions themselves to meet strong demand for semiconductors.
  • MKC: MCK’s 4Q earnings beat most estimates. EPS rose 6% to $0.84. Sales are up 11% for the year. Sales from Cholula and FONA (both new acquisitions in 2020) contributed 4% to this upside. Both consumer and flavor solution segments experienced an increase in sales. The company is expecting 3-5% sales growth for 2022 with the growth being led by new products.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. Let’s kill it next week. Stay patient and stable. Don’t let this market scare you. 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
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 1/7/2022 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars and congrats on making it through the first trading week of 2022! This week was mostly a down week for the market. This week’s slide quickened when the Federal Reserve indicated that they may be more aggressive on the timing of their first interest rate hike. Data releases show an increase in labor force participation and a huge rise in wage growth which are both economic statistics that encourage the Fed’s case for rate increases. In addition to that, we saw a lower than expected 199,000 jobs created last month. All these things affected the market this last week and may continue to produce more downside.

Even though markets had a rough week, our portfolio probably had its best week yet! We will dive into it here. Every week I write an update on the dividend portfolio so that we can track its progress. I will give an overview of the portfolio and its value, the dividends received, trades made, and any news or business announcements made that may be of interest to our positions.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $5,165 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $5,520.33. That’s a gain of $355.33 for a total return of 6.88% since inception. The account is up $126.50 for the week which is a 2.35% gain!

This is huge! We started building this portfolio on 9/26/2021 and have hit a gain of 6.88% in under 4 months. Within that same time frame, the S&P 500 has increased by 6.51%. It took nearly a quarter, but as you can see our portfolio is starting to beat the market. Let’s hope we can keep this up as we continue to add money and invest in good positions for the portfolio.

We added $175 to the account this week through adds in a couple of positions as you’ll see below.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio as tracked through simplysafedividends.com. I use that for tracking forecasted dividend income, yield, annual income, beta, and dividend growth.

Below is an excel sheet that I use to track all of my positions. There you can see my number of shares, shares bought through dividends received, average cost, and gains. The tickers in green are stocks that I bought this week. Usually, a chunk of my buys throughout the week are buys from my monthly stock picks. You can read about January’s stock picks here. I use a stock screener to find potentially undervalued stocks with safe and growing dividends. All stock picks (for this month and previous months) are highlighted in blue.

This week our buys added $8 to our annual dividend income. Our dividend yield decreased by 0.11% and our beta went up by 0.01. Neither of those are particularly a bad or good thing. High dividend yields can mean that a company is paying too much in dividends and could be at risk of needing to cut dividends depending on the healthiness of the balance sheet. 4.41% dividend yield is a little higher than most dividend portfolios I’ve seen. Since I am young and just starting off, a high yield, though risky, gives me greater cash flow now to reinvest which will help me realize the benefits of compounding gains sooner.

Dividends

This week we received two dividends. $10.00 from UWMC and $0.64 from XYLD all of which were reinvested (XYLD will be reinvested at market open on Monday).

Dividends received for the week of January 7th: $10.64

Dividends received for January 2022: $10.64

Year-To-Date Dividends: $33.56

Upcoming dividends for next week are coming from MO and MKC.

Trades

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • January 3rd
    • VZ – added 1 share at $52.32
  • January 4th
    • BBY – bought 1 share at $103.95 (new position on stock pick)
  • January 5th
    • XYLD – added $10 at $50.72 per share (weekly investment)
    • SCHD – added $10 at $82.23 per share (weekly investment)
  • January 6th
    • UWMC – $10 dividend reinvested at $5.86 for 1.705641 shares
  • January 7th
    • ACC – sold 1 share at $55.39
    • CNQ – added 1 share at $47.05
    • BBY – added 0.1 share at $102.50

Noteworthy News

This section of the post will identify some headlines that may be of import to our positions. If they are important enough, we will also call out in the posts if the news calls for actions to readjust our portfolio. Unfortunately, I have been sick with COVID this week and did not spend much time watching the news, so nothing to share this week.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. Let’s kill it next week and keep our eyes open for more good buying opportunities! 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 and here’s to an amazing 2022 of getting closer to financial freedom!

Categories
Dividend Stocks

What Happened With UWMC?

UWMC (United Wholesale Mortgage) is the biggest mortgage brokerage firm in the U.S. and this week has been a doozy for them! I started writing this article on Thursday, which is when the stock was down by 20% for the week. At first glance, the downward red chart was really the only indicator that you needed to make the decision to avoid this stock. And I wouldn’t blame you for making that decision! However, I have added to UWMC aggressively on Wednesday and Thursday and boy did it pay off! UWMC is now my second biggest position and it is my most speculative. This article is going to review the company, the recent headlines that have caused the caused the huge downside and subsequent turn around, and the reasoning behind my bullishness.

What is UWMC?

Back in January of this year, United Wholesale Mortgage went public via the largest special acquisition company (SPAC) deal ever. The SPAC that they went public through was Gores Holdings IV and was valued at $16 billion. A SPAC is a company that has no commercial operations, it is formed strictly to raise capital through an initial public offering of stock to the stock market which it then uses to fund an acquisition/merger with an existing target company. UWMC went public through the Gores Holdings IV SPAC, hit a high of $13.13 and has since dropped to 11/18’s current price of $5.63. For the year, UWMC is down 35%.

As I said before, UWMC is the biggest mortgage brokerage firm in the U.S., but they have a different business model than their competitors. Most mortgage originators are retail lenders, they find their own borrowers, put together the paperwork for the loan, fund it, and then either sell off the mortgage or hold it on their books. That’s the typical workflow. UWMC deals with mortgage brokers who find the borrower and then pass on the partially completed loan to UWMC who completes assembling and funding the mortgage. So, most retail lender’s customers are the lenders whereas UWMC’s customers are the mortgage brokers.

It sounds like this makes UWMC a middleman who takes a cut of the broker’s profits. Middlemen are always better when they are cut out of the business model, right? In most cases, yes, but in this case, UWMC has done a terrific job of strategically placing themselves in the middle of the loan originating process. Think about it this way. A typical homeowner will probably only ever do a couple of mortgages in their life. A mortgage broker, whose job is to source these loans, will do dozens a month! UWMC’s business is to service the brokers, not the individual borrowers. They bridge a disconnect between the two which causes them to have greater access to originating a HUGE volume of loans for the brokers that go through UWMC.

UWMC has invested heavily into their internal technologies. Their proprietary technology platform and emphasis on client services results in a faster, easier, and cheaper mortgage process. They have Blink+ which makes online mortgage applications very easy and secure, EASE Docs 2.0 which generates mortgage origination packages with the click of a button, UClose 2.0 which virtually eliminates the need for a closer by making closing faster and easier, and Client Connect which helps brokers manage client relationships to gain repeat business. All these technologies enable UWMC to close 1 out of every 3 purchase loans generated by mortgage brokers, which is 1 out of every 20 loans nationwide.

UWMC’s Float

Since going public, UWMC has not fared so well, and I think part of that is due to their float. Float refers to the number of shares that are publicly available for trading. UWMC’s float is small and that is a potential problem for any stock. If a stock is mostly held by insiders or institutions, meaning there aren’t many stocks available for trading on the markets, that makes it possible for large players to buy/sell a large portion of the float and thus push stock prices in one way or the other. A good float prevents that from happening which allows the market to accurately evaluate the value of a company via its stock price.

To give you another example of how important float is, all of the major stock indexes have requirements for the float of the stocks that they select for their index. The S&P 500 requires that the stocks in their index maintain at least 50% of its stock “floating” on stock exchanges. Logically, it makes sense. A company that is 60% owned by its founder, for example, is arguably more “private” than “public” from an ownership perspective, given that only 40% of shares are in the hands of the investing public.

UWMC has a float of 94 million shares. To put that into perspective, Microsoft (MSFT) has 7.4 billion shares available for trading. It would take a lot of money to manipulate the price of stock that has 7.4 shares, but for a stock that has just under 94 million shares it is a lot easier. In addition to that, roughly 90% of all UWMC stock is held by the CEOs private holding company called SFS Holding. If there are 94 million shares on the market, and the other 93% are owned privately by SFS, then that means there is roughly 1 billion shares of UWMC in existence. Such a small portion of the stock is available on the market, making UWMC’s float quite the issue.

UWMC’s Secondary Offering

If UWMC wants to become a stock popular to long term buy and hold investors, then they need to add to the float so that more people can buy in without needing to worry about unnecessary volatility.

As of Wednesday, UWMC had announced that the CEO Mat Ishbia and his family would slightly reduce their ownership in an attempt to try and make the stock more attractive to long term investors. They were going to sell 50 million Class A common stocks. This would be 53% increase to the current float. This is a huge step in the right direction.

However, the market did not seem to think so. Following the announcement of the secondary offering, the stock dropped by 20%! This was a huge overreaction. Investors seemed to think that this offering was going to dilute the value of existing shares, however this could not be more wrong. The stocks that were being offered were already existing shares owned by the SFS holding corp. These shares would not have been a dilution, they were simply increasing the public float and taking steps towards becoming a stock more attractive to institutional and long-term investors.

Why I Am Bullish

Knowing that the secondary offering wasn’t meant to be dilutive, I saw this 20% dip as a huge buying opportunity. I bought 100 shares with an average cost of $5.90 between Wednesday and Thursday this week.

In addition to the market overreaction, UWMC showed good Q3 earnings and shows a strong balance sheet. UWMC also pays $0.10 in quarterly dividends giving them a dividend yield of 6.7% on my average cost. With a yield like that, strong financials, ability to make money in a market of rising rates, their efforts to becoming a candidate for institutional attention, I could not pass up on this buying opportunity!

After buying in, on Thursday night, UWMC canceled their secondary offering claiming that the market reaction of a 20% decrease no longer made the offer a logical financial move for them. So they withdrew the offering, essentially canceling the reason for the initial dip, which caused UWMC to bounce back by 17% on Friday.

Those cheap shares IMMEDIATELY paid off! I plan on holding onto these UWMC shares and will continue to add if more opportunities present themselves. The dividend and the future outlook of the company are just too good to pass up on!

Categories
Dividend Stocks Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 11/12/2021 Week in Review

Welcome back to Dividend Dollars! I hope you’re doing well and had a great week of investing. Every week I write an update on the dividend portfolio so that we can track its progress. I will give an overview of the portfolio and its value, the dividends received, trades made, and any news or business announcements made that may be of interest to our positions.

This week high inflation signals continued to be at the forefront of market sentiment. Both the PPI and CPI came in above expectations at multi-decade highs. What’s a great way to protect yourself from rising inflation? The best hedge is to invest! In a rising-rate and rising-inflation environment, value and cyclical parts of the market tend to outperform. Our whole strategy is centered around strong value investing in companies that pay dividends. In addition to that, companies that pass on inflationary changes to their customers instead of absorbing those costs tend to hold up in periods like this. Consumer staples, energy, and healthcare do well in these environments. With these things in mind, our portfolio is prepared for a period of high inflation.

Overall, it was a good week for us despite most indexes ending the week slightly down. Let’s dive into the portfolio and see how we fared.

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $2,115 into the account, the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $2,157.69. That’s a gain of $42.69 for a total return of 2.02%. The account is up $6.75 for the week, but the overall total return of 2.02% is flat from last week.

Love seeing these gains! It tells me that our method of screening for undervalued stocks that pay strong dividends is working. As we stick with the strategy, we will start to rack up more and more dividends which will one day snowball to a great source of passive income!

Portfolio

Below is a table of everything we are invested in so far. The tickers in green are stocks that I added to this week. Every week $25 is automatically deposited into my account. When there is a stock I want to buy I’ll just throw some more funds in the account (if needed) and make the order. Sometimes I may also put that $25 towards a cheap stock that pays monthly dividends so that if I am saving to buy a larger position in something else my cash on hand isn’t sitting idle. You will sometimes see those temporary positions in the portfolio below.

As you see with the portfolio this week, I didn’t just stick with the $25 deposit. I added $550 this week and made some nice buys! I will usually add funds to my account like this so that I can take advantage of good buying opportunities which are usually called out in my monthly stock picks or other timely articles. Stock picks for this month are LMT, CAH, and MO. As of this week I now have positions in all of the stock picks and they are performing fairly well.

Dividends

This week we received one dividend. $1.04 from T. I own two shares and received $2.08.

Dividends received for the week of November 12th: $2.08

Dividends received for November 2021: $2.60

Year-To-Date Dividends: $3.24

Trades

Here’s the breakdown of the trades I made this week:

On November 8th I bought one share of MKC for $79.50.

On November 9th I added one share of T to my position at $24.61.

On November 10th I bought one share of MO at $45.15 and 5 shares of UWMC at $7.17.

On November 11th I added one share of MO to my position at $45.00.

On November 12th I sold my two shares of AQN for $14.01 per share and put that capital towards buying one share of LMT at $338.77. I also added one share of UWM to my position at $7.04.

Noteworthy News

This section of the post will identify some headlines that may be of import to our positions. If they are important enough, we will also call out in the posts if the news calls for actions to readjust our portfolio.

  • Independent Director Stephen Luczo Just Bought 25% More Shares In AT&T Inc.

Independent Director Stephen Luczo bought $2.5 million dollars’ worth of additional T shares for his position. Earlier this year he also $3 million dollars’ worth of shares. This suggests that he has confidence in the company’s future giving me greater confidence in my position! In the last 6 months, insiders have bought about $4.5 million of T shares.

  • Amgen: Lumykras Gets Positive CHMP Opinion

The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency gave a positive opinion recommending conditional marketing authorization of Amgen’s Lumykras for the treatment of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer based on results from Phase 2 clinical trials.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. Let’s kill it next week and keep our eyes open for more good buying opportunities! This has been my most aggressive week yet, let’s keep up the pressure! 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 and take care!