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Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Monthly Review: June 2015

This is my 30th 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
  • Purchases
  • 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: 18,010.68S&P 500: 2,107.3910-YR BOND: 2.10%
Jun 30, 2015
DOW: 17,619.51S&P 500: 2,063.1110-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!

14 comments:

  1. Congrats on the fantastic progress, FerdiS. Almost $1K in dividends is some serious cash deposited into your account .. for not doing much. Looks like you are well on your way to meet most of your goals as well. Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing

    R2R

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks R2R -- yup, I'm looking forward to the month DivGro earns $1,000 in dividends. I came oh so close this month... Goal-wise, there are a few that would need serious additional attention. Overall, though, I'm satisfied with my progess.

      Thanks for commenting!
      FerdiS

      Delete
  2. Hi FerdiS,

    I have seen your name and site around the community and finally stopped by. Looks like things are going really well so far for you. Congrats on the site stats as well. 260k page views is great! Do you count your site ad revenue as part of your passive stream or is it not significant enough?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Adam -- welcome to the dividend growth investment community and thanks for commenting on my blog! I had a quick look at your blog -- looks like you have some great goals that will help you reach your early retirement goal.

      I use AdSense to serve ads. The income is small, less than a $1 a day, on average. But it is truly passive, as I don't do anything more than I normally do on my blog. I have not explored other ad serving mechanisms.

      Included in the passive income deposit (that I think you're referring to) is income from Seeking Alpha exclusive articles. That income is not quite so passive, as it involves work to write and submit articles for review. After an article is published, though, each page view generates a penny of income. Nice.

      Take care and best of luck in your journey... visit again soon!

      Delete
  3. Hi FrediS

    Very good grogress this month, hope things will pick up for me also.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Financial Freedom. Just keep at it and be patient... dividend growth investing is a long term process that requires lots of patience. Best of luck!

      Delete
  4. Hi Ferdi,

    Wow, $500+/mo, that's an amazing result!
    Seems like you're doing this for more than 2,5 years now.. and it's really paying off.

    Good job, keep the snowball growing.

    Best wishes, DfS

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi DfS -- thanks for stopping by and commenting. I crossed the $500 per month in May, which is a nice milestone because thats what I need to reach my goal of $6,000 of dividend income this year.

      I've been involved in the stock market for much longer than 2.5 years, in some form or another, but dividend growth investing and DivGro only for 2.5 years...

      Cheers
      FerdiS

      Delete
  5. Happy 2.5, Ferdi! Congrats on some very solid dividend numbers, I can't wait to see you break four digits. Your post layout is fantastic, really enjoying the images. Wishing you a great month of investing ahead. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I'm looking forward to crossing the $1,000 of dividend income per month mark -- but is will be a long time before I rake that amount in every month! My average is "only" $528 right now. Thanks for you kind words and best of luck with your investing, too!

      Cheers
      FerdiS

      Delete
  6. Congrats on some great progress all around. And also for hitting 30 months! In my almost 4 years of blogging I've seen many bloggers come and go but there's some great ones that are sticking around, you included. Keep up the good work and I expect you'll kill it in the 2nd half of the year on your goals. And hopefully the markets pull back some to really let us build up our portfolios at better valuations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi PIP, thanks for visiting! Almost 4 years is a great accomplishment, congratulations! Doing this has been one of the most rewarding endeavors and I hope to continue for many years to come. Thanks for your contribution in the process -- I enjoy your blog and your frequent comments on mine. As far as a market pullback goes, it would be great to pick up shares of some of the dividend stalwarts that always seem to be too expensive, like PG and KO. Of course, being able to buy more shares of current holdings at lower prices would be nice, too!

      Take care!
      FerdiS

      Delete
  7. Congrats on your progress. Hitting 30 months is a big milestone, I'm still new to PF blogging that's for sure. I love looking at your chart, the monthly averaging is definitely moving in the right direction!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Tawcan! Looks like you'll be celebrating your first anniversary this month -- keep up the good work and enjoy the journey. The dividend income chart is my favorite. It certainly presents dividend growth investing in the proper light!

      Delete

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