Monthly Review, January 2016

January was a tough month for investors. The new year started with lots of volatility and a wave of selling, which pushed the market to its worst weekly performance since 2011. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones are down by more than 5% for the month. For dividend growth investors, the declining market should offer some great buying opportunities.

In the next few months, I'll continue to transfer holdings from my Scottrade account to DivGro. In the process, I'm adding some solid dividend paying stocks and increasing DivGro's projected annual dividend income. I'm also planning to transfer stocks from a couple of IRA accounts in a similar fashion. As with my Scottrade transfers, I'm not actually moving the holdings from one account to the other. (I'm not allowed to do that with IRA holdings anyway!). Instead, I'll just be managing these accounts using my DivGro investment strategies.

In this post, I'd like to review DivGro's performance in the month of January 2016. As always, I'm updating DivGro's Performance page at the same time.

January Highlights

After December's record-setting dividend income, this month I recorded 'only' $1,095. Of this amount, $552 comes from dividends transferred from my Scottrade account and $543 comes from dividends received in January.

Here is DivGro's projected monthly dividend income (red line) plotted against monthly dividends:


Comparing dividend income by month is another way to see progress. It is great to see how dividend income is growing year to year.

This month, I transferred 4 more stocks from my Scottrade account to DivGro. These are Reynolds American, Inc (NYSE:RAI), Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc (NYSE:DPS), Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), and The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS). Additionally, I purchased more shares of Ford on 2 separate occasions.

Transactions:

• Purchases
• 2016-01-26: Buy 280 shares of F @ $12.24
• 2016-01-29: Buy 150 shares of F @ $11.77
• Transfers
• 2016-01-02: Transfer 85 shares of RAI @ $28.85
• 2016-01-03: Transfer 70 shares of DPS @ $68.44
• 2016-01-04: Transfer 170 shares of F @ $15.14
• 2016-01-05: Transfer 73 shares of DIS @ $99.55
• Sales
• None
• Dividends
• 2016-01-04: Cash Dividend Received WMT: $16.66
• 2016-01-04: Cash Dividend Received PNNT: $147.00
• 2016-01-04: Cash Dividend Received RAI: $30.60
• 2016-01-05: Cash Dividend Received KMB: $24.64
• 2016-01-06: Cash Dividend Received DPS: $33.60
• 2016-01-08: Cash Dividend Received PM: $66.30
• 2016-01-11: Cash Dividend Received DIS: $9.46
• 2016-01-11: Cash Dividend Received DIS: $19.17
• 2016-01-11: Cash Dividend Received MO: $42.38
• 2016-01-14: Cash Dividend Received VNR: $0.03
• 2016-01-15: Cash Dividend Received WPC: $18.36
• 2016-01-15: Cash Dividend Received STAG: $16.10
• 2016-01-15: Cash Dividend Received O: $19.10
• 2016-01-15: Cash Dividend Received STWD: $52.80
• 2016-01-15: Cash Dividend Received DLR: $40.80
• 2016-01-21: Cash Dividend Received CB: $16.08
• 2016-01-27: Cash Dividend Received GPS: $95.67
• Past Dividends
• 2016-01-02: Transfer Past Dividends RAI: $258.64
• 2016-01-03: Transfer Past Dividends DPS: $101.46
• 2016-01-04: Transfer Past Dividends F: $102.00
• 2016-01-05: Transfer Past Dividends DIS: $90.50
• Deposits
• 2016-01-06: January Cash Deposit: $1,000.00
• 2016-01-27: February Cash Deposit: $2,000.00
• Past Deposits
• 2016-01-02: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,452.10
• 2016-01-03: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $4,790.80
• 2016-01-04: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,573.47
• 2016-01-05: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $7,267.45

Changes in Projected Annual Dividend Income (PADI):

• From Purchases
• The purchase of 280 F shares added $168.00.
• The purchase of 150 F shares added $90.00.
• From Sales
• None
• From Transfers
• The transfer of 85 RAI shares added $122.40.
• The transfer of 70 DPS shares added $134.40.
• The transfer of 170 F shares added $102.00.
• The transfer of 73 DIS shares added $103.66.
• From Increases
• O's dividend increase added $9.00.
• T's dividend increase added $6.00.
• OHI's dividend increase added $5.60.
• INTC's dividend increase added $9.60.
• D's dividend increase added $5.46.
• HCP's dividend increase added $3.00.
• PADI increased by $759.12 to $7,535.09.

Dividend Summary:

• Dividend income last month: $1,584.98
• Dividend income this month: $1,095.27
• Total dividend income year-to-date: $1,095.27
• Total dividend income all-time: $14,296.84

Markets:

Dec 31, 2015	DOW: 17,425.03 S&P 500: 2,096.93 10-YR BOND: 2.21%
Jan 31, 2016	DOW: 16,466.30 S&P 500: 1,940.24 10-YR BOND: 1.93%

In January, the Dow dropped 5.50% and the S&P 500 dropped 5.07%.

Portfolio: click on the triangle to see a snapshot of DivGro's state on 31 January 2016.

Goals Report: I've set some challenging goals for 2016:

1. PADI: Increase projected annual dividend income to $12,000.
2. Dividends: Earn $10,800 in dividend income.
3. Posts: Post 120 articles on my DivGro blog.
4. Seeking: Write 52 premium articles for Seeking Alpha.
5. DivNet: Write 8 articles for The DivNet.

With 31 of 366 days behind us, 8.47% of the year is over. I'm behind on all my goals except Posts.

January Posts

I wrote a total of 12 articles in January. In case you missed any of those articles, here they are:

•   1 Jan: So Long, Seadrill – Lessons learned from my Seadrill speculation
•   2 Jan: Recent Transfer: Reynolds American, Inc – a solid dividend payer yielding 3.12%
•   3 Jan: Recent Transfer: Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc – stellar stock performance in the past 24 months
•   4 Jan: Recent Transfer: Ford Motor Company – yields a solid 4.26% and has payout ratio of about 50%
•   5 Jan: Recent Transfer: The Walt Disney Company – low payout ratio of 29% means DIS can grow its dividend
• 10 Jan: Monthly Review, December 2015 – record setting dividend income!
• 16 Jan: Quarterly Review, Q4-2015 – quarterly dividend income tops $3,000
• 19 Jan: 12 Dividend Increases, December 20, 2015-January 15, 2016 – 3 DivGro stocks announce increases
• 24 Jan: 10 Dividend Growth Stocks for January 2016 – the popular monthly series returns!
• 26 Jan: 12 Dividend Increases, January 18-January 22, 2016 – 2 DivGro stocks announce dividend increases
• 31 Jan: 17 Dividend Increases, January 25-January 29, 2016 – 1 DivGro stock announces a dividend increase
• 31 Jan: Recent Buy: Ford Motor Company – added 430 shares to my holding of 170 shares

Looking Ahead: January was a tough month for investors. The markets were very volatile and it looks like we could be entering a bear market. For dividend growth investors, bear markets provide opportunities to add shares of exceptional dividend growth stocks at or below fair value. In February and March, I'll continue to transfer stocks from my Scottrade account to DivGro. When those transfers are completed, I'll start transferring stocks I hold in a couple of IRA accounts to DivGro.

Thanks for reading and take care, everybody!