Monthly Review, August 2014

At the end of every month, I review the month's actions with regards to DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks. At the same time, I update my blog's Performance page, which provides a central place for reviewing DivGro's status and performance relative to prior months and the markets.

In August, I added two new stocks, PM and DE. DivGro now has 34 different holdings, so I'm almost at my goal of 36 holdings balanced across the 10 sectors in my watch list. In the next few months, I need to add three stocks in the Consumer Discretionary sector, and one each in Consumer Staples, Financials, Industrials, Materials and Utilities.

This month, I was nominated for a Liebster Award, a kind of chain letter in which one blogger nominates 5 others to answer 5 questions; and then likewise nominates 5 more bloggers with a new set of 5 questions to answer... It is a fun way to shine the spotlight on fellow blogger's sites and to get to know the bloggers better.

The past few weeks I worked on creating an expanded Blogroll page. The blogroll focuses on dividend growth investing and related passive income generation blogs. I'm highlighting blogs that include public portfolios by using links marked ¶.

In August, DivGro's monthly dividend income dropped a little to $351. Still, compared with August 2013 when I earned only $162, that's a great increase! DivGro now has a market value of $110,180 and is delivering an average yield on cost of 5.00%. Projected monthly income is $389, up from $372 at the end of July.

This month, I invested in Philip Morris International Inc. (PM), my fourth holding in the Consumer Staples sector; and in Deere and Company (DE), my fourth holding in the Industrials sector. These are DivGro's 33^rd and 34^th holdings, respectively.

Transactions:

• Purchases
• 2014-08-05: BUY 31 PM @ $81.29
• 2014-08-05: BUY 30 DE @ $86.23
• Dividends
• 2014-08-01: Return of Capital ETP:  $95.50
• 2014-08-07: Return of Capital APU:  $105.60
• 2014-08-08: Cash Dividend Receipt GD: $21.70
• 2014-08-13: Cash Dividend Receipt ACE:  $15.60
• 2014-08-14: Cash Dividend Receipt VNR:  $37.80
• 2014-08-20: Cash Dividend Receipt CAT:  $21.00
• 2014-08-27: Cash Dividend Receipt TGH:  $35.25
• 2014-08-29: Cash Dividend Receipt PRE:  $18.09
• Deposits
• 2014-08-05: Bonus Cash Deposit: $1,000
• 2014-08-29: SEPTEMBER Cash Deposit: $2,500

New Dividends and Dividend Increases:

• The purchase of PM added $116.56 of projected annual dividend income.
• The purchase of DE added $72.00 of projected annual dividend income.
• WAG's dividend raise added $3.96 of projected annual dividend income.
• MO's dividend raise added $12.00 of projected annual dividend income.
• BBL's dividend raise added $6.88 of projected annual dividend income.
• Projected annual dividend income: $4,673.90

Dividend Summary:

• Dividend income last month: $395.73
• Dividend income this month: $350.54
• Total dividend income year-to-date: $2.310.70

Markets:

Jul 31, 2014	DOW: 16,533.60 S&P 500: 1,930.67 10-YR BOND: 2.51%
Aug 29, 2014	DOW: 17.098.45 S&P 500: 2,003.37 10-YR BOND: 2.34%

The markets climbed higher in August, but on low volume. For the month, the Dow gained 3.42% and the S&P 500 gained 3.77%. DivGro trailed the performance of the overall markets, but gained 2.60% nevertheless.

Portfolio: The following spreadsheet shows the state of DivGro on August 31, 2014:

Looking Ahead: I have enough funds for a single purchase in September. I'll be looking to buy a stock in any of the following sectors: Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Financials, Industrials, Materials or Utilities. I'll be updating the Performance page with this month's information soon. I'm also moving forward on adding advertisements to my blog and I'm planning to write articles for The DIV-Net and Seeking Alpha.

Thanks for reading! How did your portfolio do in August?