December 2016 Recap

Here are the dividends I received during December.

• XOM --- $92.95
• PFE --- $91.56
• BP --- $68.40
• RDS-B --- $65.80
• WFC --- $64.98
• GM --- $62.01
• KO --- $56.23
• SO --- $50.70
• TROW --- $40.60
• MSFT --- $32.18
• GILD --- $24.51
• TGT --- $24.21
• NEA --- $23.83
• FLOW --- $19.20
• MET --- $16.00
• EMR --- $14.40
• GS --- $7.83
• ESV --- $0.70

Total dividends received in my taxable account are $757.09.

Total net capital invested is $25,708.30 which raised my yearly dividends by around $1000.00.

Overall December was a really solid month! It's nice to finally get the dividend income back up to a respectable level. NEA actually made an interest payment on the 1st and 30th so I may not get a payment in January.

I'm really excited about the upcoming year and will continue working diligently to reconstruct my portfolio. I have 37 income producers starting out for next year and will likely add 5 to 10 more throughout the year. My primary focus will be to build existing positions whenever possible.

On a final note, I would like to say that I am missing Dividend Hustler! That guy has some serious game and provides a shitload of motivation! I hope he reappears sometime soon. The dividend community is better off with his presence whether he has a portfolio filled with dividend stocks or just stone cold cash!

Hustler, I hope you reappear during the 2017!!

In the mean time everyone, in all areas of their lives, should continue to.......see below in bright red!!

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Final 2016 Buy --- CSCO

Today I initiated a position in CSCO.

• CSCO:  115 shares @ $30.38 --- Yield  3.42

Total capital is $3500.25 and will add $119.60 to my yearly dividends. I haven't done the exact math, but this purchase gets me to $6,000 in forward dividends. I have owned CSCO in the past and am glad to add shares once again, even though at a much higher buy price. The yield and dividend growth have been strong in recent years and makes a great complement to my MSFT position!

Hopefully the next couple of months provide better opportunities to add to existing positions. If we could duplicate Jan/Feb of 2016 that would be wonderful. It's really kills me that BA was trading around a $100 earlier this year and now has a $5.68 annual dividend. I bought and sold shares earlier this year and I could have had a 5.5% YOC. Crazy. Same story with CMI and many other industrials.

Forward dividends are around $6000.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- NKE

Today I initiated a position in NKE.

• NKE: 40 shares @ $50.99 --- Yield  1.41%

Total capital invested is $2046.55 and will add $28.80 to my yearly dividends. I believe NKE was the  best performing DJIA stock in 2015 and is currently the worst performer in 2016. The payout ratio is low as is the yield, but I think the dividends will continue to grow quickly and will give a YOC of 3% within a few years.

Forward dividends are just under $5900.00. I will absolutely reach $6000 within the next couple of days.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- PFE

Today I added some more share to my PFE position

• PFE:  75 shares @ $32.56 --- Yield  3.93%

Total capital invested is $2448.94 and will increase my yearly dividends by $96. Buying Pfizer around 4% usually has worked out pretty well for me over the past few years. Right now I have approximately 383 shares, but 300 of them have a $32 covered call attached to them which expires next month.

Those share are earning a $1.28 premium so I will probably close out the option early and keep a $100 or so profit from the trade rather than risk losing the shares.

Anyway, I am now about $150 away from my year end goal of $6000 in forward dividends.

Forward dividends are around $5850..

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Final 2016 Lending Club Update

My LC portfolio value finally reached $10,000 a couple of weeks ago which prompted me to discontinue future contributions for now. I plan on letting things ride for a while and may continue building up my loan balances in a few months.

In the mean time, I do plan on reinvesting all the interest payments I receive.

I have been investing $25 at a time and now have 492 notes up from 421 notes last report. I am continuing to use the automated note selecting mechanism which lets the computer spread the capital across a variety different loan grades.

Right now as you can see above, my current return is 5.50% after all defaults and past due loans have been written down.This is a significant drop from previous months. Obviously this happens when defaults start to rise and hopefully this is a temporary phenomenon. I would like to hope that the Christmas holidays are partially to blame as families can become pretty strapped this time of the year. 

Also, my monthly payments have increased to approximately $384.


2016 Net Annualized Returns

July --- 6.77%
August  --- 6.33%
September --- 6.65%
October --- 6.76%
December --- 5.50%

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- OHI

Today I initiated a small position in OHI.

• OHI:  80 shares @ $30.24 --- Yield  8.07%

Total capital invested is $2425.99 and will add $195.20 to my yearly dividends.

I have done a good job of avoiding high yielders this year, but I just glanced at my sector allocations and noticed the following.

• Consumer Defensive --- 21.47%
• Healthcare --- 17.28%
• Consumer Cyclical --- 14.94%
• Energy --- 11.14%

As you can see, this year's portfolio is definitely less volatile than in past years. I'll continue add value regardless of sector and quite honestly energy companies came through for me this year so I am glad that I kept them within my much smaller portfolio. I'm probably finished adding REITs for a while, but would love to double this position around $25.

Forward dividend are around $5750.

Next week will have some more big moves as well. 

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- HCP

Today I added to my HCP position

• HCP:  100 shares @ $28.95 --- Yield  5.11%

Total capital invested is $2901.45 and will add $148.to my yearly dividends. This brings my share count to just over 309 shares.

I am also watching O and OHI on the REIT front. Other stocks I continue to watch include NKE, CSCO, PG, GIS, GE, and JNJ.

Forward dividends are around $5550.


DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- VFC

Well, the buying streak continues...

• VFC:  80 shares @ $54.33 --- Yield  3.09%

Total capital invested is $4353.35 and will increase my dividends by $134.40.  

Forward dividends are around $5400.00.  Technically my dividends combined with my Lending Club net interest, puts me at $6k already, but I would like to see the dividends get to $6k as well!!

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buy --- MDT

I initiated a position in MDT today.

• MDT:  60 shares @ $72.38 --- Yield  2.38%

Total capital invested is $4349.63 and will increase my dividends by $103.20. 

The yield isn't overly impressive, but with only a 37% payout ratio there is plenty of room for future growth. Also there is over 35 years of dividend growth history. Pretty impressive!!

The DJIA is now just 25 points away from 20,000. What an amazing year!!

Forward dividends are around $5250.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Buys --- TUP & KMB

Today I added shares to some existing positions.

• TUP:  30 shares @ $52.98 --- Yield  5.13%
• KMB:  20 shares @ $114.86 --- Yield  3.20%

Total capital invested is $3900.50. The purchases have a combined yield of 3.98% and will add $155.20 to my yearly dividends.

Forward dividends are around $5150.00. 

I'm still shooting for 6k by the end of the year. It will be difficult to reach especially with the DOW sniffing 20k. I would like to add a REIT,  but O and OHI have spiked recently. Most likely I'll have to stay with other out of favor names which include NKE, MDT, DEO, ABT, NEA, KO, and the two listed above. I'm sure a surprise stock or two will surface as well.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

November 2016 Income & Expenses

The amounts below are cash amounts and are net of taxes, insurance, 401k contributions, HSA, etc. In other words, the amounts are what get deposited and withdrawn from my accounts.

Day job (take home pay) --- $11020.03
Dividends/Interest ---  $174.60

Total net income --- $11194

Expenses --- $8415 (Taken from Mint)

Savings  $2779.63 --- Rate  24.83%

November was a fairly uneventful month from a business view. The election was certainly exciting and I think business spiked a bit on the promise of a brighter future. The stock market definitely spiked as did my net worth.

This post is a cash flow document and as you can see I spent too much money and am glad the bulk of the Christmas expenses are behind me!

December has been unusually slow so far, which is highly unusual. Hopefully the next two weeks pick up and we can end the year on a high note. Also, I have had quite a few doctor's bills hit this month as well and the expenses will once again be elevated.

Even though the year is not quite over, I am already trying to come up with new strategies for expense control/reduction. I know, I know, I know.....a pair of scissors to the credit card is a pretty effective plan. Hell that may be my single best strategy!


DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Recent Sell --- FLO

I just had a $20 limit order executed and I sold my entire position of FLO today.

• FLO:  120 shares @ $20.01 --- Yield  3.2%

Total proceeds from this transaction are $2393.65 and my yearly dividends will be reduced by $76.80.

I originally purchased the shares back in September for $14.62 and I planned on adding to the position, but as many stocks have done over the past couple of months the shares got away from me. When the yield was in 4.5% range, FLO seemed like a steal, but now it's just another 3% yielder and quite frankly I am happy to take the 37% gain and redeploy into another better quality 3% yielder.

Forward dividends are back around 5k. I have some work to do in the next few weeks.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

GS exchanged for JNJ --- DJIA 19500 (WOW)

Today I sold my GS position and initiated a position in JNJ.

• GS:  12.05 shares @ $235.04 --- Yield  1.11%
• JNJ:  27 shares @ $110.62 --- Yield  2.89%

Total new capital invested is only $168.84, but will raise my net yearly dividends will increase by $55.07 since the difference in yields is so large between the two companies.

Rational:

I bought GS a few months back at $141 and a 2% yield and it is now almost $100 a share higher with a 1.1% yield. It has been a while since I have sold a position and really didn't want to. I must admit seeing a 63% in a just a few months combined with a 1% yield made the decision much easier.

Also I have been trying to create a more traditional DGI portfolio and JNJ fits within with that strategy much better than GS. I am closely watching massive gains in M, MET, and GM as well. These companies are some of my biggest gainers in recent months and I may slowly drop them as well and look for other DG companies. I will most likely keep GM because of its high yield and strong earnings growth.

JNJ is not cheap, but is cheaper. It may get even cheaper which is fine with me. 3% and 7-10% yearly dividend growth is awesome! 

Forward dividends are $5100.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

November 2016 Recap

Here is the summary of the dividends I received in my taxable account.

• HCP --- $76.41
• VZ --- $29.71
• ABT --- $26.15
• TIS --- $21.00
• AAPL --- $14.33
• NEA --- $7.54

Total dividend income received for November is $175.14

I'm really pleased with November's results and other than HCP, most of the income is fairly evenly distributed. 

I was down just a bit when compared to August's result, however most of that can be attributed to the HCP cut. These things happen and the only thing to do is move on and keep adding to the portfolio and replacing the lost income..

I was also able to contribute $18537.17 to the portfolio.  These new contributions will add an additional $700.36 to my forward dividends.

During the month of December I will be looking to add to current positions as well as adding a few small dogs of the dow companies (PG, CSCO, GE, KO, and VZ are amazing companies).

Forward dividends are around $5000.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY

Getting Defensive --- KO

I had a limit order filled today and added another 50 shares of KO.

• KO:  50 shares @ $39.99 --- Yield  3.50%

Total capital invested is $2006.45 and will add an additional $70 to my yearly dividends. 

This purchase pushes me just over 210 shares. Adding KO add a 3.5% yield is never a bad idea!

In other news, I am SERIOUSLY considering selling my GS shares that I bought several months ago at $140 and I see the shares are currently over $220. Other non traditional dividend companies I own that I might dump are M, MET, and GM. They are all way up off their lows and I am up 30-60% in the last few months. 

I don't normally look at precious metals, but they have been totally destroyed during the last few months and might be a nice speculative play. 

Just a few things on my mind.... :-)

Forward dividends are $5050.

DEFY MEDIOCRITY