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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Quarterly Review, Q1-2015

Given a list of fairly challenging goals for 2015, I started the year at quite a pace! In this post I'll give an overview of activities in Q1-2015, the 9th quarterly review I've done for DivGro.

Recently, I reported on reaching several milestones, including crossing 200,000 page views on DivGro and 150,000 page views on Seeking Alpha. Since joining Seeking Alpha in September 2014, I've published 11 original articles. And, on April Fools Day, my first article for The DIV-Net was published. (No joke!)

Dividend income in Q1-2015 totaled $1,338, nearly double the amount ($673) received in Q1-2014.

This past quarter, I contributed capital funds in the amount of $27,500 to DivGro, including three regular monthly deposits of $2,500 each and two bonus deposits of $10,000 each. This allowed me to initiate several new positions and to add to existing holdings in DivGro.

I initiated positions in Starwood Property Trust (STWD), Walt Disney (DIS), T. Rowe Price (TROW), Realty Income (O), and Gap (GAP), while adding shares to existing holdings in International Business Machines (IBM), Caterpillar (CAT), Helmerich & Payne (HP) and AT&T (T).

Eight holdings announced dividend increases in Q1-2015:
  • Energy Transfer Partners (ETP)
  • Meredith Corp (MDP)
  • PartnerRe Limited (PRE)
  • Avista Corp (AVA)
  • Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT)
  • Digital Realty Trust (DLR)
  • General Dynamics (GD)
  • Eversource Energy (ES)
Unfortunately, Vanguard Natural Resources (VNR) announced a 44% dividend cut. While this is annoying, I'm not going to sell my units quite yet. The adjusted yield on cost is still a reasonable 5.01% and I want to find a suitable replacement first, before moving on...

The net result of the new buys and dividend adjustments is that DivGro's projected annual dividend income increased by $723 to $5,609, an increase of 14.8%!

Markets:
Dec 31, 2014
DOW: 17,823.07S&P 500: 2.058.9010-YR BOND: 2.17%
Mar 31, 2015
DOW: 17,776.12S&P 500: 2,067.8910-YR BOND: 1.93%

In the quarter ending March 2015, the Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased by 0.26% while the S&P 500 increased by 0.44%. In comparison, DivGro's value decreased by 0.97% (when measured by internal rate of return (IRR) for Q1-2015).

At the end of Q1-2015, DivGro's market value of $144,150 represents a simple return of 10.2% on $130,850 invested. Of course, simple return does not take into account the timing and size of cash deposits as IRR does. DivGro's IRR since inception is 32.8%.

See my Performance page for a spreadsheet showing the state of DivGro on 31 March 2015.

Dividend Adjustments:
  • New buys STWD, DIS, TROW, O, and GAP added $473.55 in projected annual dividend income.
  • Additions to existing holdings IBM, CAT, HP and T added $408.15 in projected annual dividend income.
  • ETP declared a new quarterly distribution of 99.5¢ per unit, increasing projected annual dividend income by $8.00. Yield on Cost (YoC) of ETP is now 8.39%.
  • MDP increased its quarterly dividend to 45.75¢ per share, adding $5.50 to projected annual dividend income. YoC of INTC is 4.05%.
  • PRE approved a quarterly dividend of 70¢ per share, raising YoC to 3.05%. The increase added $3.24 to projected annual dividend income.
  • AVA declared a new quarterly dividend of 33¢ per share, increasing projected annual dividend income by $3.75. YoC of AVA is now 3.87%
  • WMT announced a quarterly dividend of 49¢ per share, raising YoC to 2.60%. The increase adds $1.36 to projected annual dividend income.
  • DLR declared a new quarterly dividend of 85¢ per share, increasing projected annual dividend income by $3.84. Yield on Cost (YoC) of DLR is now 6.45%.
  • GD declared a new quarterly dividend of 69¢ per share, increasing projected annual dividend income by $9.80. YoC of GD is now 4.08%
  • ES approved a quarterly dividend of 41.75¢ per share, raising YoC to 4.07%. The increase added $6.00 to projected annual dividend income.
  • VNR's distribution cut removed $199.80 from projected annual dividend income. The new monthly distribution is 11.75¢ per unit, reducing YoC to 5.01%
Dividends Received:
  • Total for Q1 of 2015: $1,337.83 (up 17.4% from $1,139.69 in Q4-2014)
  • Total year-to-date: $1,337.83

Dividend Details
  • 2015-01-02: Cash Dividend Receipt BAX: $19.24
  • 2015-01-02: Cash Dividend Receipt PNNT: $60.20
  • 2015-01-05: Cash Dividend Receipt WMT: $16.32
  • 2015-01-05: Cash Dividend Receipt ACE: $15.60
  • 2015-01-09: Cash Dividend Receipt PM: $31.00
  • 2015-01-09: Cash Dividend Receipt MO: $39.00
  • 2015-01-14: Cash Dividend Receipt VNR: $37.80
  • 2015-01-15: Cash Dividend Receipt DLR: $39.84
  • 2015-01-16: Cash Dividend Receipt PMT: $73.20
  • 2015-02-02: Cash Dividend Receipt DE: $18.00
  • 2015-02-02: Cash Dividend Receipt T: $35.25
  • 2015-02-04: Return of Capital ETP: $99.50
  • 2015-02-06: Cash Dividend Receipt GD: $21.70
  • 2015-02-06: Return of Capital APU: $105.60
  • 2015-02-13: Cash Dividend Receipt VNR: $37.80
  • 2015-02-20: Cash Dividend Receipt CAT: $21.00
  • 2015-02-27: Cash Dividend Receipt PRE: $18.90
  • 2015-03-02: Cash Dividend Receipt AFL: $19.50
  • 2015-03-02: Cash Dividend Receipt HP: $48.13
  • 2015-03-02: Cash Dividend Receipt COP: $27.74
  • 2015-03-02: Cash Dividend Receipt INTC: $28.80
  • 2015-03-10: Cash Dividend Receipt TGT: $20.80
  • 2015-03-10: Cash Dividend Receipt TGH: $35.25
  • 2015-03-10: Cash Dividend Receipt IBM: $33.00
  • 2015-03-10: Cash Dividend Receipt XOM: $20.70
  • 2015-03-10: Cash Dividend Receipt CVX: $53.50
  • 2015-03-10: Cash Dividend Receipt JNJ: $21.00
  • 2015-03-12: Cash Dividend Receipt WBA: $14.85
  • 2015-03-12: Cash Dividend Receipt MSFT: $24.80
  • 2015-03-13: Cash Dividend Receipt MDP: $25.16
  • 2015-03-13: Cash Dividend Receipt AVA: $24.75
  • 2015-03-16: Cash Dividend Receipt MCD: $22.95
  • 2015-03-17: Cash Dividend Receipt VNR: $21.15
  • 2015-03-31: Cash Dividend Receipt BBL: $124.00
  • 2015-03-31: Cash Dividend Receipt ES: $25.05
  • 2015-03-31: Cash Dividend Receipt TRV: $15.95
  • 2015-03-31: Cash Dividend Receipt DLR: $40.80
Goals 2015: I'm making good progress, as this chart from the March monthly review illustrates:
I'm ahead of schedule on my projected annual dividend income goal and only slightly behind pace on my dividend income goal. I've written 10 premium articles for Seeking Alpha, which puts me far ahead of schedule. On the other hand, I've got some catching up to do writing articles for The DIV-Net. And I'm essentially on track with my DivGro posts.

As far as my health goals are concerned, I've hiked 454 miles, which means I've (virtually) reached Roseburg in Oregon. To reach Seattle by the end of June, I'll have to hike a little bit more every day than I've done up to now.

My climbing goal is turning out to be relatively easy. I'm busy climbing the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, for the 12th time – so there's only another 18 times to go before I reach my year-end goal!

I'm far behind on my weight loss goal, so I'll have to work much harder at that one!

Outlook For Q2-2015: I'll need to continue working hard on my goals for 2015. Its important to lay an early foundation, because dividend payments won't immediately kick in after I buy stocks. I'm looking forward to deploy about $9,000 in available cash. Look for upcoming posts on that!

Thanks for reading!

22 comments :

  1. Hey DivGro,

    Those are some very challenging goals!

    I'm confused about climbing a building in Dubai. There must be some figure of speech here. Are you climbing at the gym and measure your results so you could compare them to the length of the Burj Khalifa?

    You should be proud about your progress. Good luck with reaching all of the goals!

    Best wishes, DfS

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi DfS --

      Fair question about climbing. In my 2015 goals post, I proposed climbing 4,890 floors in 2015, which is equivalent to climbing the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, 30 times. I use a Fitbit, which is a cool little device that tracks your steps, distance, calories burned and floors climbed.

      Personally, I find it more inspiring to think of walking to Seattle and back or climbing the world's tallest building 30 times, than walking 1,620 miles or climbing 4,890 floors.

      Take care!

      Delete
  2. Almost $30k invested in one quarter is fantastic! It looks like you added to a lot of excellent companies too. Your dividend total for the quarter was about the same as mine. You set a lot of goals for this year and it looks like you're doing excellent on them. Keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was nice to add some bonus deposits to my regular monthly deposits. Before adding further bonus deposits, I'll need to pay any tax shortfalls first :-(.

      Isn't it exciting to pull in some extra (passive) income every month? And, the income comes with an automatic annual increase (in my case about 7%)!

      Cheers!

      Delete
  3. Hi FrediS,
    Impressive set of numbers for the quarter. Receiving close to $1400 dollars in dividends and at the same increasing the projected dividends by close to $1000 is wonderful. Keep it going.
    DGJ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks DGJ -- yes, I'm please with where things are going. My goal of earning $6,000 in dividend income in 2015 seems within reach even though I'm slightly behind of schedule. With projected dividends ahead of schedule, I think I can make up the shortfall with 3 quarters to go.

      Delete
  4. Great first quarter and those YOC numbers look pretty hefty. Gotta love the dividend increases!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed -- I like seeing how YoC creeps up over time. The other number I like seeing is payback, which is the amount of my initial investment paid back in dividends. For DivGro, ETP has paid back nearly 18% already. Pretty cool!

      Delete
  5. Amazing quarter all around! Those new investment amounts are so inspiring and it's great that they'll start paying of immediately. You're really showing us all how it's done over here. I've really enjoyed all the content you've provided over the quarter. Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Ryan, for your kind words -- glad that I can help inspire others just like others have inspired me on this journey. Take care and happy investing!

      Delete
  6. Your passion toward achieving goals really motivates me. Love that dividend increase. keep up the great work!

    Cheers,

    BeSmartRich

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why, thank you, BeSmartRich! This is a great community and I've been inspired by so many bloggers. I'm thankful that I can return the favor.

      Take care!

      Delete
  7. That's a great quarter! Congrats on this step closer to your goals!

    Been trying Seeking Alpha for a couple weeks too and find it awesome! I really enjoy the results I get there :-)

    Cheers!

    Mike

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Mike! I've been enjoying writing for Seeking Alpha, though I want to make sure that my blog here at DivGro still gets all my attention. This community is great and I've learned a tremendous amount from it. Good luck!

      Delete
  8. Nice work, FerdiS. Congratulations on the great quarter! You are an inspiration!

    It seems that a lot of stocks in your portfolio are not in my radar yet. Thanks for bring them to my attention. I'll look into them.

    Keep up the great work!

    -- MU

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi there, MU -- thanks for your kind words.

      I have several stocks that are not "traditional" dividend growth investment stalwarts. It would be interesting, though, to hear from you and other readers which stocks in my portfolio are not yet in your radar. Take care and have a good one!

      Cheers

      Delete
  9. Great stuff!! i really like that goal chart. 30k in 3 months is amazing. I will put in 30k this year. :/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, FFdividend -- the goals chart is a nice visual presentation of progress. I can clearly see what needs more attention! I've been lucky to be able to add nearly 30k -- the rest of the year will be much more conservative!

      Investing 30k a year is a fantastic accomplishment. Many people don't invest anything. Keep it up!

      Delete
  10. FerdiS,

    You're on a tear! Up $60k YOY is incredible! Very informative quarterly review and Seeking Alpha articles. Looking forward to seeing your results over the next quarter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Scott! We've been blessed with some bonuses and other sources of income, that has allowed us to put aside more for DivGro investments. Thanks for your kind words!

      Delete
  11. You have a very good list of stocks in your portfolio man! And the dividend income for Q1 is really something. Did I read it correctly that you collected around $1,300 in this three months?
    It is really something I am still to reach.
    Good job!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Martin, I try my best but, inevitably, you pick some duds, like I did with SDRL and VNR. For now, I'm hanging onto to those or various reasons. Later this year when things quiet down a bit, I'll revisit those stocks and decide what to do about them. Yes, I received $1,338 in the past 3 months. My goal this year is $6,000, so I'm slightly behind on it.

      Good luck on your journey -- its one step at a time!

      Delete

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