Tag: Investing

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Earnings Economics Market Recap Stock Market

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

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

Weekly Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 12/9/2022 Week in Review

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

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

Portfolio Value

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

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

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

Portfolio

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

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

Dividends

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

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

Dividends received for 2022: $353.97

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $376.89

Trades

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

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

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio

Dividend Portfolio: 11/25/2022 Week in Review

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

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

Portfolio Value

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

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

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

Portfolio

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

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

Dividends

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

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

Dividends received for 2022: $330.47

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $353.39

Trades

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

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Economics

Stock Market Week in Review – 10/7/22

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

Weekly Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
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.