Category: Portfolio Updates

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Portfolio Updates

October Update to the Portfolio

Hey everyone, it’s that time of the month when I’ve made my last few acquisitions and additions to the portfolio. Now it’s time for me to summarize everything that I’ve done in this last month of October. Before you take a look at what I’ve done, just understand that this type of purchasing power is only done with safety nets in place. My wife and I have enough emergency savings to last us 10 months without either of us working so if you don’t have an emergency savings, I don’t recommend doing this much investing. 

I did not include my Roth IRA because it’s in mutual funds and I have a financial guy that takes care of that. With that being said, here is a look at the moves I’ve made in the market over this past month of October.

TickerSharesAverage CostTotals
ABBV2$86.33$172.66
CSCO3$39.77$119.31
CWEN5$29.62$148.10
DUK3$92.67$278.01
IRT12$11.60$139.20
KO6$50.14$300.84
LYB2$69.01$138.02
MAIN4$30.49$121.96
MO7$39.19$274.33
O2$61.02$122.04
PFE7$36.72$257.04
SO4$58.55$234.20
T6$27.55$165.30
VZ2$57.84$115.68
WTRG6$41.96$251.76

These are the new additional holdings to the account this month 

TickerSharesAverage CostTotals
AFL14$33.94$475.16
IRM20$26.29$525.80
STX10$51.61$516.10

You might be looking at this and realizing that this is more than what I said I would be investing every month. That’s because last month, we had way more in our savings than we needed so I decided to invest it into our dividend account. 

As you can see, I don’t try to buy the dips if I can help it. I’m a long term investor. I buy shares based on when the Ex-Dividend dates are and the goal is to grow my portfolio. If I waited for the perfect opportunity to get in the market, I would always be on the sidelines without growing my account.

The strategy I took up this month was trying to get every holding that I have closer to $500. I won’t be doing this in the future, but I just set that little goal for our account and now that I’ve reached it, I’m going to start purchasing additional shares based on when their Ex-Dividend date is. Since I’m not selling my holdings, I’m just going to keep buying and hold. 

For November, I’m going to be looking at the following companies with their Ex-Dividends coming up this month:

PFE – 11/5

WTRG – 11/12

DUK – 11/12

SO – 11/13

AFL – 11/17

MAIN – 11/24

KO – 11/30

By the end of the year, I’m trying to hit a number of different milestones for the account.

  1. Reach Annual Projected Dividend Income of $500. I’m at $474 right now!
  2. Reach a $10,000 account size. I’m at $8,750 as of the writing of this article!
  3. Hitting 20 different holdings in my account. I’m currently at 19 and need just 1 more to hit it!

I hope this information helped you out with understanding my strategy as a long term dividend growth investor and hopefully it spurs some motivation for you and your account! Thank you so much for reading along and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store for November. I’ll catch you on the next one!

Marcus 

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Portfolio Updates

Dividend Income: October 2020

Hey everyone, the time has come for my first monthly update concerning my dividend income for the month of October. Before you pick apart my income, just realize that I started dividend investing 3 months ago and therefore still have a pretty small account size and my dividend income won’t be sexy by any means. What this month shows is that although I’m relatively new to this community, I already am growing my account at a rapid rate!

Here are the dividends I received in October 2020:

KO$1.23
DUK$0.97
MO$3.44
BEN$5.13
MAIN$2.47
O$1.87
CSCO$3.24
IRT$3.00
Total$21.35

This comes out to a grand total of $21.35! Yes, I know it’s not a lot compared to a lot of other blogs that are showcasing 4 or even 5 figures of dividends every month, but it’s a starting point that’s just going to keep growing. Next month, I have a lot of exciting companies that are going to be paying me dividends as well. 

In November, I’m looking forward to receiving dividends from:

AT&T – $T

Verizon Communications – $VZ 

Realty Income – $O

Abbvie Inc. – $ABBV

Main Street Capital – $MAIN

As always, I’ll be keeping you updated on the status of my portfolio and the investments I’ll be making in the future. If you’re just starting your dividend investing journey as well, just know that it’s very easy to start and that it’s YOUR journey. Go at your own pace and don’t compare yourself too harshly with other people’s portfolios. 

On that note, I’ll wrap it up and thank you so much for reading the blog and I’ll catch you on the next one!

Marcus

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Portfolio Updates

Our Dividend Portfolio

Many people have different investment methods and strategies. There’s no one size fits all! The strategy that works for us (and when I say “us” I mean me since my wife trusts me to take care of finances) is focusing on high quality dividend growth stocks. For the most part, I look at companies that have been steadily increasing their dividends for years because it shows stability and gives me confidence that the companies have enough cash to pay out their dividends. I have 17 holdings at the moment and am always looking to increase the number of holdings as well as the amount in each company. My portfolio is only 3 months old, and this is just what I have so far. 

These are the companies that I’m currently invested in:

$ABBV – Abbvie Inc.

$BEN – Franklin Resources Inc.

$CSCO – Cisco Systems Inc.

$CWEN – Clearway Energy Inc.

$DUK – Duke Energy Corporation

$IRT – Independence Realty Trust Inc.

$KO – Coca-Cola Company

$LYB – Lyondell Based Industries

$MAIN – Main Street Capital Corporation

$MO – Altria Group

$O – Realty Income Corporation

$PFE – Pfizer Inc.

$SO – Southern Company

$STX – Seagate Technology PLC

$T – AT&T Inc.

$VZ -Verizon Communications Inc.

$WTRG – Essential Utilities Inc.

My sector breakdown is:

Healthcare – 12.2%

Information Technology – 12.0%

Utilities – 22.2%

Real Estate – 12.7%

Consumer Staples – 12.4%

Materials – 4.7%

Financials – 11.3%

Communication Services – 12.4%

With my current breakdown, my highest value sector is Utilities and that’s because I’ve found that the Utilities dividends tend to be very safe and consistent even though they have lower yields, which is fine with me. My Materials sector isn’t too high because I just have one company that deals in Materials. This is because I just haven’t found any Materials companies that have looked attractive to me yet. Again, I have criteria that needs to be met before I invest in a company. 

At the moment, I have roughly $500 in each company and I contribute $1,000 every month to the portfolio. My strict rule is that I DO NOT SELL! I buy shares in these companies when there is either a dip, or an ex-dividend date coming up so I can get additional dividends. I’m currently projected to receive $409 every year in dividends from the $8,200 portfolio I currently have which means my yield is just under 5%. I know for many of the dividend investors out there, this yield might be on the higher side, but I’m looking to get into more high quality dividend stocks in the future which have lower yields, but more stability. 

Again, this is just a basic level summary of my portfolio and in upcoming posts, I’ll speak on each of these and highlight why I am invested in each of them. I don’t just randomly pick companies, there is a method to the madness, I swear!

The goal for my portfolio is to be able to get enough dividends coming in every year to be able to cover the expenses that my wife and I currently have like our mortgage, utilities, and food costs. After doing the math, we would need $26,400 in yearly dividends in order to reach this goal and although I’m new to the journey, I’m excited to share the path we are taking with everyone who reads this blog. I’ll be learning a lot along the way and I look forward to sharing what I learn with all of you!

I’m going to end the post there so I hope you enjoy reading about my portfolio and I’ll catch you on the next one!

Marcus