Quarterly Review, Q3-2017

This is the 19^th quarterly review of DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks. Soon I'll complete my fifth year of dividend growth investing (DGI).

In my Q2-2013 quarterly review, I wrote about a high adventure hike in New Mexico with my youngest son. While hiking down into a valley with heavy backpacks, I can't help but think that I'll have to climb back up again. Riding with the bulls give me a similar feeling. I can't help but think that we'll be challenged with a bear market, sooner or later.

Somehow, I feel that my DGI strategy wouldn't be fully vetted until I've survived a bear market!

With that somewhat sobering thought, let's look at what happened with DivGro in Q3-2017.

10 Dividend Growth Stocks For October 2017

David Fish maintains a list of stocks with at least five consecutive years of higher dividend payments. Colloquially called the CCC list, it contains more than 800 dividend growth stocks trading on U.S. exchanges. While the CCC list and the accompanying spreadsheet is a wonderful source for dividend growth investors, analyzing so many stocks would be nearly impossible.

My monthly 10 Dividend Growth Stocks series identifies 10 CCC stocks worthy of further research. I select stocks from the CCC list, rank them, and assign a 7-star rating to each stock. It would be too demanding to rank all the CCC stocks, so I use different screens every month to trim the CCC list to a smaller number of candidates.

With the markets trading at all-time highs, I thought it might be interesting to repeat last October's selection process, namely to focus on stocks I believe to be trading at or below fair value.

11 Dividend Increases: October 9-13, 2017

Companies that regularly increase dividends show confidence in future earnings growth potential.

One way to identify dividend growth stocks for further analysis is to monitor dividend increases.

Recently, eleven companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends, including two of the stocks I own.

Two stocks announced double-digit dividend increases.

Monthly Review: September 2017

Welcome to the September review of DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks! With these monthly reviews, I share updates to my portfolio and provide a summary of dividends collected.

DivGro's projected annual dividend income (PADI) increased to $16,655, well above my 2017 goal of $14,400! One reason that I exceeded my PADI goal so early in the year is the success of my options trades, which allowed me to invest an additional $11,000 in funds into dividend growth stocks.

I just love quarter-ending months! September was another record-setting month for DivGro with dividend income totaling $2,245. This amount exceeded the previous record (June 2017) by about 8% and represents a year over year increase of about 80%!

3 Dividend Increases: October 2-6, 2017

Companies can only increase their dividends regularly if earnings grow sufficiently.

I monitor dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks to identify candidates for further analysis.

Recently, three companies on my watch list announced dividend increases.

Options Update: September 2017

In June 2016, I started trading options for income by leveraging DivGro, my dividend growth portfolio. I sell covered calls and secured puts on dividend stocks I own or would like to own. The options income I collect flows back into DivGro, just like dividends. It provides extra cash to buy more dividend growth stocks.

I write monthly options update articles to keep track of my options trades. Each update serves as a status report on the open options and the obligations I have. I also report on new trades and I provide a running tally of DivGro's options income to date.

Through September 2017, I've collected options income totaling $18,773. Of that total, $10,135 is secured, meaning I no longer have any obligations to fulfill. That represents extra money I can use to buy dividend growth stocks.

Recent Additions To Existing Positions (Part 3)

Today I'm presenting Part 3 of Recent Additions to Existing Positions about trades I executed last week. With these trades, I'm adding shares to existing DivGro positions rather than opening new positions.

In Part 1, I discussed adding shares to two Consumer Staples stocks, CVS Health (CVS) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) — two stocks that are trading well below fair value.

Part 2 covered Valero Energy (VLO)  and Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI). VLO is an Energy sector stock yielding 3.6%, while OHI is a REIT yielding about 8%.

In Part 3 I'm presenting the final pair of additions, two Information Technology sector stocks with great growth prospects.