Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Monthly Update: July 2014



Portfolio Acitivities
$1,500 deposited into the Investing Account

Sold MDT @ $63.45
Sold COP @ $84.20
Sold POT @ $36.11
Sold KO @ $39.50
Bought 14.9726 shares of ROST @ $66.52
Bought 10 shares of RKT @ $103.10
$450 deposited into Lending Club

Portfolio Income
Dividends ($105.52)
     AFSI: $2.31

     CIG: $66.55
     KO: $3.69
     MDT: $1.63
     ARCP: $6.35
     PSEC: $11.93
     NDRO: $2.35
     BLV: $2.69
     JNK: 4.65
     PCY: $1.99
     Interest from Cash: $1.38
Lending Club
     Interest: $31.35
Rental Income
     Townhouse 1: $950


Switching to a Total Return Strategy: I know this is sacrilegious in the dividend growth investing community but I am focusing on total returns these days. Lending Club is giving enough income to allow me to move into some positions that have lower yield but higher returns. So far this year it is working very well for me as I have 8.17% return vs S&P is at 5.01%
This is with a 5.01% forward yield on the portfolio with 28.5% cash.
Due to the massive deposits I am doing this year I am not posting or trumpeting my horn with the total return numbers as its a bit skewed with deposits.
At the end of the day though I am still an income guy. The capital gains are intended to buy more income producing assets.

Lots of activity: Lot of selling occurred this month as many of my stops were hit. Is this the beginning of the correction in equities everyone has been expecting? Who knows. All I did was look at what was overvalued and put stops on them. 
I don't like to be this cash heavy but with whats going on in Ukraine and Iraq I'm not exactly eager to deploy capital. Even with this cash heavy a position I am on pace to hitting my income goal for 2014.

Record Income: For the second month in a row I have hit a new record for income thanks mostly to CIG paying their annual dividend. I still would have done better then previous quarter but the January/April/July/October months are always my lowest.

Market seems to be aged: Its not like I am purposefully avoiding the standard dividend income positions. Its that they seem overvalued. Lots of them have hit high valuations over their own historic P/E ratios.
I don't know about anyone else but I am finding it hard to find many undervalued positions to deploy cash to. 

Anyone else out there finding it hard to deploy cash or is your style more finding whatever is cheapest on your watch list and deploying it asap?

Disclaimer: The investments and trades discussed are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial adviser, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

8 comments:

  1. I sold out of a few of my over-valued positions and have been going into cash and BDCs. FSIC/MAIN/PSEC have equal weights and all pay monthly dividends. I'm saving all I can to try to get the next rental property with cash mid 2015. Of course a lot of my stocks will be liquidated to accomplish this.

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    1. Another rental nice. What does that make 3 or 4?
      BDCs.... I've been studying them a lot recently as I am not fully sure how much credit spread compression they are going to get when rates rise.

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  2. haha...even though its considered sacrilegious in dgi, as long as you are getting great returns at the end of the day - tahts all that matters. Looks like you made some good moves tehre in July. Good time to sell and move out on some of those positions.

    best wishes for the future
    R2R

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  3. Congrats on the great month! It is nice to see how your Lending Club income has grown over the last six months as you've pumped more and more money into the account.

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    1. Hey there W2R. Lending club is becoming a big part of my portfolio. I'm liking the yield and my screen seems to be working though I'll want a full year of data before I fully trust it. Thanks for stopping by!

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  4. With this blog as an inspiration I challenged myself to the $100 per month goal. Currently own only monthly payers (BBEP still my favorite) and am @ $52 monthly... but I am real interested and will be playing HOT going into September. They declared quarterly dividend of $0.35 and Special Dividend of $0.65 Per Share ... Ex-dividend 9/03/14. Also, just announced 1.5B buy back and had an overweight upgrade w/84 to 89 pt. That's gonna be a fun one to watch!!

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    1. I'm a bit humbled Cholt that you drew inspiration from me. Thanks for stopping by!

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