A Giant Home Run with General Dynamics Corporation

Last night, the San Francisco Giants beat the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in game 7 of the World Series, giving the Giants their third World Series championship in five seasons. Apart from Madison Bumgarner's stunning performance, I enjoyed the fact that two of the Wild Card teams ended up playing in the World Series. The Giants scored a total of 30 runs (versus the Royals' 27) in the series, of which only two were home runs.

So what does this have to do with dividend growth investing? Well, on Tuesday, I scored my first home run with DivGro when General Dynamics Corporation (GD) crossed the 100% profit mark!

Recent Buy: T

Oct 23, 2014: Bought 75 shares of T at $33.64 per share.

Incorporated on October 5, 1983 and based in Dallas, Texas, AT&T Inc. (T) is a holding company providing telecommunication services in the United States and worldwide. Services include wireless communications, local exchanges, long-distance services, data/broadband and internet services and many other services. In March 2014, the company completed the acquisition of prepaid wireless provider Leap Wireless International Inc.

T is a Dividend Champion with an impressive 30-yr streak of dividend increases. It pays quarterly dividends in February, May, August and November. Initial yield on cost is 5.47%.

Recent Buy: AVA

Oct 22, 2014: Bought 75 shares of AVA at $34.12 per share.

Incorporated in 1889 and headquartered in Spokane, Washington, Avista Corporation (AVA) is a diversified energy company engaged in the generation, transmission and distribution of energy in North America. Avista Utilities is an operating division of AVA that comprises of its regulated utility operations. It serves customers in Washington, Idaho and Oregon and contributes over 90% of earnings. In July 2014, AVA acquired Alaska Energy and Resources Company.

AVA is a Dividend Contender with a 12-yr streak of dividend increases. It pays quarterly dividends in March, June, September and December. Initial yield on cost is 3.72%. For a company in the Utilities sector, AVA has a solid 5-year dividend growth rate of 12.07%.

The Bloggers' Dividend Growth Portfolio

Includes: AFL • APD • AVA • BAX • BBL • BMS • CAT • CLX • COP • CSX • CVX • DE • DLR • EMR • GIX • HCP • HRS • IBM • ITW • JNJ • KMB
• KMP • KO • LEG • LMT • LO • MAT • MCD • MDT • MO • MSFT • NSC • O • OHI • PEP • PG • PM • PSEC • QCOM • RTN • SO • T • TGT • V
• VZ • WAG • WM • WMT • XOM • YUM 

Today, Seeking Alpha published my first premium article! Here is an excerpt of the introduction:

A while ago, I expanded DivGro's blogroll to include nearly 100 blogs. There is a special section highlighting active blogs that are at least one year old. I provide short descriptions to tell readers what each blog is about. Additionally, I include links to the public portfolios of blogs in my blogroll. These links are marked with a ¶. 

With a little work it is possible to get an interesting, composite view of dividend growth investing from public DGI portfolios. Earlier this year, I used 20 different portfolios to create a list of popular dividend growth stocks. On that occasion, the four most popular dividend growth stocks were McDonald's (NYSE:MCD), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO). 

The purpose of this article is to repeat the exercise, but this time with the much more comprehensive list of blogs in my blogroll.

Please head on over to Seeking Alpha to read The Bloggers' Dividend Growth Portfolio: Popular Dividend Growth Stocks Trading On U.S. Exchanges.

Dividend Increases, October 1-15, 2014

Only two of my watch list stocks (and none of my DivGro holdings) announced dividend increases in the first 15 days of October, so this post will be short and sweet!

I monitor dividend increase announcements to make Yield on Cost (YoC) adjustments and to update DivGro's projected annual dividend income. Even for stocks I don't own, dividend increases are interesting as they prompt added scrutiny of those stocks. Companies that regularly increase dividends show confidence in their ability to pay those increasing dividends.

Performance Page Updated

Earlier this year, I redesigned my Performance page and included a set of radial charts, which are reminiscent of a logo my dad designed many years ago. The logo has a circular core, with radial arms pointing out in different directions. It is still being used today!

Likewise, the radial charts on my Performance page have radial bars representing a data value for each of DivGro's holdings. The holdings are ordered clockwise by purchase date and start with my first buy, CVX, at the 12 o'clock position. I buy stocks for DivGro in chunks of about $2,500 at a time, except for master limited partnerships (MLPs), which I double-up on. Eventually, my goal is to have a weight-balanced portfolio.

Recent Buy: SDRL

Oct 6, 2014: Bought 100 shares of SDRL at $25.00 per share.

Established in 2005 as a Bermuda-based company, Seadrill Limited (SDRL) is an offshore deepwater drilling contractor providing worldwide services to the oil and gas industry. The company operates an extensive fleet comprising of drill ships, jack-up rigs, semi-submersible rigs and tender rigs for operations in shallow to ultra-deepwater areas and harsh and benign environments.

In April this year, I bought 72 shares of SDRL at $34.91 per share, so with this buy I'm averaging down to a per share price of $29.15. Yield on Cost (YoC) for this buy is 16%. As I remarked when I bought SDRL in April, the stock is one of my riskier buys, given its relatively short dividend history and erratic earnings history.

Quarterly Review, Q3-2014

I started DivGro in January 2013, so the 7^th quarter of DivGro is over. I'd like to report on DivGro's performance and progress made towards meeting my 2014 goals.

Before doing so, just a few words on happenings over the past three months. In July, we travelled to South Africa to visit with family and friends and to hike the Otter Trail. We also visited two national parks, Addo Elephant National Park and Kruger National Park. It was a wonderful trip and good to take break from our usual activities. In August, I created an expanded Blogroll page in which I'm highlighting blogs that include public portfolios. And, in September,  I increased DivGro's exposure by posting some articles on Seeking Alpha. The increased exposure created more traffic to this site and page views have since crossed the 100,000 mark.

10 Dividend Growth Stocks for October, 2014

David Fish's CCC list is updated every month and contains all U.S.-listed stocks that have raised their dividends for at least five consecutive years. The accompanying spreadsheet provides key statistics of the CCC stocks and is a great resource for dividend growth investors. Every month, I search the CCC list for stocks trading at a discount to fair value. Since the list contains more than 500 stocks, I use a series of filters to reduce the number of stocks to consider.

This year, one of my goals is to balance DivGro's holdings across all 10 sectors in my watch list. In my view, sector-balanced does not mean an equal number of holdings in each sector. I prefer to target the sector distribution of my watch list. Since there are more candidates in the Energy and Financials sectors, for example, I want more holdings in those sectors than holdings in the Materials and Telecommunication Services sectors, with fewer candidates. Note that I have a dynamic watch list, which means that the ideal sector distribution changes from month-to-month.

Monthly Review, September 2014

September was an interesting month as I increased DivGro's exposure by posting articles on Seeking Alpha. The increased exposure created more traffic to this site and, consequently, total page views have crossed the 100,000 mark. On average, DivGro is now getting about 500 page views per day. Unfortunately, my application for associate membership of The DIV-Net is stuck somewhere in the ether, which is a bad start to what I had hoped would be a mutually beneficial relationship. Oh well...

In September, I added MCD to DivGro, but parted ways with CHL and SNP after both companies cut their dividends. Consequently, DivGro now has 33 different holdings. With plenty of cash on hand, I'm in a good position to reach my goal of 36 holdings by year's end. At the same time, I'm quite pleased with my diversification efforts this year. DivGro has multiple holdings in most of the 10 sectors in my watch list. I'm still overweight in Energy and underweight in Consumer Discretionary and Industrials.