Monthly Review: June 2015

This is my 30^th monthly review post, which means DivGro is now 2.5 years old. What a journey it has been! Thanks to the interaction I've had with my readers (and fellow-minded bloggers), I've learned a lot about dividend growth investing – a big THANKS for that!

When I started this blog, I wrote down some overall goals in my blog's About page, along with various strategies and stock selection criteria. It is interesting to look back at what I had written then, and to compare it with what I know now...

Here's one thing I wrote:

The main goal of this portfolio is to generate a reliable and growing dividend income stream. My aim is to achieve a 12% yield on cost within 10 years of inception. 

Now, I'm certainly busy "generating a reliable and growing dividend income stream", as illustrated in the following chart showing monthly dividend income along with projected monthly dividend income:


Achieving "a 12% yield on cost within 10 years of inception" is improbable, since my plan is to continue adding fresh capital to DivGro over the next 7.5 years. (Later investments have less time to benefit from dividend increases). Perhaps I should revisit that statement...

June Highlights

June 2015 was a record month for DivGro as far as dividend income goes! I collected $924 in dividends, an increase of 134% over last June's $395. For comparison, last month's dividend income was $444.

DivGro's market value stands at $152,143, which is down slightly from last month. The decrease is mainly due to Monday's significant drop in U.S. stocks on Greece debt concerns.

The portfolio has an average yield on cost (YoC) of 4.39% and projected monthly dividend income (PMDI) of $528, which is up from $520 last month. Payback is 5.83%.

In June, I initiated a position in Reliance Steel & Aluminum (NYSE:RS), one of the largest metals service center companies in the United States. RS is the Materials sector winner in the June 2015 edition of my 10 Dividend Growth Stocks article series.

After receiving 40 shares of South32 Ltd. ADR (OTCMKTS:SOUHY) when the company spun off from BHP Billiton Plc (NYSE:BBL), I promptly sold those shares. The position represented only about 11% of my usual holding size and I wasn't interested in turning it into a full position.

Transactions:

• Spin-off
• 2015-06-02: Received 40 spin-off shares of SOUHY @ $8.30
• 2015-06-23: Sell 40 shares of SOUHY @ $7.10 
• Purchases
• 2015-06-12: Buy 40 shares of RS @ $63.98
• Dividends
• 2015-06-01: Cash Dividend Receipt AFL: $19.50
• 2015-06-01: Cash Dividend Receipt WMT: $16.66
• 2015-06-01: Cash Dividend Receipt INTC: $28.80
• 2015-06-01: Cash Dividend Receipt PRE: $18.90
• 2015-06-01: Cash Dividend Receipt HP: $48.13
• 2015-06-01: Cash Dividend Receipt COP: $27.74
• 2015-06-01: Cash Dividend Receipt CMI: $14.82
• 2015-06-02: Taxable Spinoff Out BBL: $332.00
• 2015-06-09: Cash Dividend Receipt JNJ: $22.50
• 2015-06-10: Cash Dividend Receipt IBM: $39.00
• 2015-06-10: Cash Dividend Receipt XOM: $21.90
• 2015-06-10: Cash Dividend Receipt CVX: $53.50
• 2015-06-10: Cash Dividend Receipt TGT: $20.80
• 2015-06-11: Cash Dividend Receipt MSFT: $24.80
• 2015-06-12: Cash Dividend Receipt VNR: $21.15
• 2015-06-12: Cash Dividend Receipt WBA: $14.85
• 2015-06-15: Cash Dividend Receipt MDP: $25.16
• 2015-06-15: Cash Dividend Receipt O: $9.48
• 2015-06-15: Cash Dividend Receipt MCD: $22.95
• 2015-06-15: Cash Dividend Receipt AVA: $24.75
• Deposits
• 2015-06-24: Passive Income Cash Deposit: $533.67
• 2015-06-29: July Cash Deposit: $2,500.00

Changes in Projected Annual Dividend Income:

• The purchase of 40 RS shares added $64.00.
• CAT's dividend increase added $16.80.
• TGT's dividend increase added $6.40.
• DIS's dividend increase added $9.18.
• O's dividend increase added $0.30.
• Projected annual dividend income (30 June 2015): $6,337.77.

Dividend Summary:

• Dividend income last month: $444.13
• Dividend income this month: $924.28
• Total dividend income year-to-date: $3,118.36

Markets:
Source: Yahoo! Finance

May 31, 2015	DOW: 18,010.68 S&P 500: 2,107.39 10-YR BOND: 2.10%
Jun 30, 2015	DOW: 17,619.51 S&P 500: 2,063.11 10-YR BOND: 2.33%

In June, the Dow dropped 2.17% and the S&P 500 dropped 2.10%. In comparison, DivGro dropped 3.91%. As I've stated before, my focus is on dividend income and growth, so I'm not overly concerned with DivGro's performance relative to the market.

Portfolio: click on the triangle to see a snapshot of DivGro's state on 30 June 2015.

Goals Progress: Below is a chart showing the progress I'm making on my 2015 goals. The lagger goal remains my weight loss goal, although I've made some progress in June. Harder work is need on that goal!


June Posts

In June, DivGro's total page views increased by 20,000 to just over 260,000. In case you missed any of my posts in June, here are links to the articles I published, in order of popularity by page view:

1. Monthly Review: May 2015 – crossing $500 per month in dividend income (and other fun facts)
2. 10 Dividend Growth Stocks for June 2015 – GPS tops the list again, followed by RS and HOG
3. 9 Dividend Increases, June 1-12, 2015 – DivGro holdings CAT and TGT announce increases
4. 11 Dividend Increases, May 18-29 2015 – DivGro holding ACE announces an increase
5. Recent Sell: South32 Ltd – why I sold BBL's spin-off shares
6. Recent Buy: Reliance Steel & Aluminum – buying RS doubles my Material sector exposure 
7. 6 Dividend Increases, June 15-26, 2015 – DivGro holdings DIS and O announce increases
8. Harley-Davidson: Dividend Stock Analysis – why I won't buy HOG right now

Looking Ahead: I have enough funds for a single purchase in July. I'll be looking at the top 10 stocks in this month's edition of my 10 Dividend Growth Stock series of articles for candidates. I'm looking forward to writing another quarterly review.

As always, I've updated my Performance page with the latest results. It provides a central place for reviewing DivGro's status and performance relative to the markets and to prior months.

Thanks for reading and take care, everybody!