Monthly Review, July 2014

During the month of July, we visited South Africa, taking a break from our usual activities. We had a wonderful time hiking the Otter Trail and visiting two national parks, Addo Elephant National Park and Kruger National Park. Of course, the best part was that we got to experience all of these with our extended families.

I took some time during my break to work on DivGro, adding one new stock, IBM, and writing quarterly and midway review posts. I'm happy with DivGro's performance and it seems like I'm in good shape to meet my goals for 2014.

In July, DivGro set another new record for monthly dividend income, namely $396! That is a tremendous increase over last July, when I earned only $45 in dividend income. DivGro now has a market value of $105,413 and is delivering an average yield on cost of 5.06%. Projected monthly income is $372, up from $366 at the end of June.

This month, I invested in International Business Machines (IBM), adding one more stock to DivGro's holdings in the Information Technology sector. IBM is my 32nd holding. One of my goals this year is to increase the number of holdings to 36 and to balance them across all 10 sectors in my watch list.

Transactions:

• Purchases
• 2014-07-11: BUY 14 IBM @ $187.91
• Dividends
• 2014-07-01: Cash Dividend Receipt TRV:  $15.95
• 2014-07-01: Cash Dividend Receipt NU:  $23.55
• 2014-07-01: Cash Dividend Receipt DLR:  $39.84
• 2014-07-01: Cash Dividend Receipt BAX:  $19.24
• 2014-07-01: Cash Dividend Receipt PNNT:  $60.20
• 2014-07-03: Cash Dividend Receipt CHL:  $44.06
• 2014-07-07: Cash Dividend Receipt NTT:  $48.28
• 2014-07-10: Cash Dividend Receipt MO:  $36.00
• 2014-07-15: Cash Dividend Receipt VNR:  $37.80
• 2014-07-30: Cash Dividend Receipt PMT:  $70.80
• Deposits
• 2014-07-29: AUGUST Cash Deposit: $2,500

New Dividends and Dividend Increases:

• The purchase of IBM added $61.60 of projected annual dividend income.
• CHL's actual semi-annual dividend (#2) reduced projected annual dividend income by $2.19.
• NTT's actual semi-annual dividend (#2) reduced projected annual dividend income by $0.51.
• COP's dividend adjustment added $6.08 of projected annual dividend income.
• ETP's distribution adjustment added $8.00 of projected annual dividend income.
• Projected annual dividend income: $4,462.50

Dividend Summary:

• Dividend income last month: $394.59
• Dividend income this month: $395.73
• Total dividend income year-to-date: $1,868.16

Markets:

Jun 30, 2014	DOW: 16,826.60 S&P 500: 1,960.23 10-YR BOND: 2.52%
Jul 31, 2014	DOW: 16,533.60 S&P 500: 1,930.67 10-YR BOND: 2.51%

Volatility increased towards the end of July. During the month of July, the Dow and S&P 500 dropped 1.85% and 1.66%, respectively. Likewise, DivGro experienced a loss, but I happy to say that the loss was "only" 0.86%.

Portfolio: The following spreadsheet shows the state of DivGro on July 30, 2014:

Looking Ahead: I have enough funds for a single purchase in August. 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. 

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