Monthly Review, December 2015

The new year started with increased volatility in the stock market. The first week of trading ended with a wave of late selling, pushing the market to its worst weekly performance since 2011. The dismal start to 2016 follows on concerns about China's economy slowing down. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones are down by 6% for the week, while the Nasdaq declined more than 7%.

For dividend growth investors, the declining market should offer some great buying opportunities. I'm looking forward to deploying some of the cash available in my DivGro portfolio. In January and February, I'll continue to transfer holdings from my Scottrade account to DivGro. In the process, I'm adding some solid dividend paying stocks and increasing DivGro's projected annual dividend income.

In this post, I'd like to review DivGro's performance in the month of December 2015. Later this month, I'll write quarterly and annual reviews as well. I'll be updating DivGro's Performance page so
readers can review DivGro's status and performance relative to the market and to prior months.

December Highlights

I had record-setting dividend income in December of $1,585. Of this amount, $815 comes from dividends transferred from my Scottrade account. Total dividends received in 2015 is $7,907 – well above my goal of $6,000 for 2015!

Here is a chart showing dividends received by month and DivGro's projected monthly dividend income:


This month, I transferred 6 more stocks from my Scottrade account to DivGro. These are W.P. Carey (NYSE:WPC), Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN), Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP), and Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD).

I closed several positions of stocks I no longer believe should be in DivGro. I sold all units of the following master limited partnerships (MLPs): AmeriGas Partners (NYSE:APU), Vanguard Natural Resources (NYSE:VNR), and Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE:ETP). I also got rid of all my shares of Seadrill (NYSE:SDRL). Finally, I completed my tax-loss harvesting trade of Qualcomm (QCOM).

Transactions:

• Purchases
• None
• Transfers
• 2015-12-01: Transfer 40 shares of WPC @ $66.83
• 2015-12-07: Transfer 60 shares of TD @ $41.49
• 2015-12-13: Transfer 100 shares of PFE @ $25.07
• 2015-12-15: Transfer 60 shares of TXN @ $43.24
• 2015-12-17: Transfer 26 shares of UNP @ $93.46
• 2015-12-25: Transfer 22 shares of GILD @ $116.48
• Sales
• 2015-12-29: Sell 65 shares of QCOM @ $51.06
• 2015-12-29: Sell 172 shares of SDRL @ $3.63
• 2015-12-29: Sell 120 units of APU @ $33.87
• 2015-12-29: Sell 180 units of VNR @ $3.01
• 2015-12-29: Sell 100 units of ETP @ $33.19
• Dividends
• 2015-12-01: Cash Dividend Receipt HP: $48.13
• 2015-12-01: Cash Dividend Receipt INTC: $28.80
• 2015-12-01: Cash Dividend Receipt COP: $28.12
• 2015-12-01: Cash Dividend Receipt AFL: $20.50
• 2015-12-01: Cash Dividend Receipt CMI: $18.53
• 2015-12-08: Cash Dividend Receipt JNJ: $22.50
• 2015-12-10: Cash Dividend Receipt IBM: $39.00
• 2015-12-10: Cash Dividend Receipt CVX: $53.50
• 2015-12-10: Cash Dividend Receipt XOM: $47.45
• 2015-12-10: Cash Dividend Receipt MSFT: $28.80
• 2015-12-10: Cash Dividend Receipt TGT: $22.40
• 2015-12-11: Cash Dividend Receipt WBA: $15.84
• 2015-12-14: Cash Dividend Receipt NTT: $44.01
• 2015-12-15: Cash Dividend Receipt KO: $21.45
• 2015-12-15: Cash Dividend Receipt STAG: $16.10
• 2015-12-15: Cash Dividend Receipt O: $19.05
• 2015-12-15: Cash Dividend Receipt MCD: $24.03
• 2015-12-15: Cash Dividend Receipt MDP: $25.16
• 2015-12-15: Cash Dividend Receipt VNR: $21.15
• 2015-12-15: Cash Dividend Receipt AVA: $24.75
• 2015-12-18: Cash Dividend Receipt RS: $16.00
• 2015-12-18: Cash Dividend Receipt QCOM: $79.20
• 2015-12-21: Cash Dividend Receipt D: $23.31
• 2015-12-30: Cash Dividend Receipt UNP: $95.67
• 2015-12-30: Cash Dividend Received GILD: $9.46
• Past Dividends
• 2015-12-01: Cash Dividend Receipt WPC: $151.80
• 2015-12-07: Transfer Past Dividends TD: $191.83
• 2015-12-13: Transfer Past Dividends PFE: $264.60
• 2015-12-15: Transfer Past Dividends TXN: $147.00
• 2015-12-17: Transfer Past Dividends UNP: $50.42
• 2015-12-25: Transfer Past Dividends GILD: $9.46
• Deposits
• 2015-12-23: Passive Income Cash Deposit: $298.72
• 2015-12-30: January Cash Deposit: $1,000.00
• Past Deposits
• 2015-12-01: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,673.17
• 2015-12-07: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,489.41
• 2015-12-13: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,507.41
• 2015-12-15: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,594.67
• 2015-12-17: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,429.96
• 2015-12-25: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,562.52

Changes in Projected Annual Dividend Income (PADI):

• From Purchases
• None
• From Sales
• The sale of 65 QCOM shares removed $-124.80
• The sale of 180 VNR shares removed $-253.80
• The sale of 100 ETP shares removed $-422.00
• The sale of 120 APU shares removed $-441.60
• From Transfers
• The transfer of 40 WPC shares added $152.80
• The transfer of 60 TD shares added $79.20
• The transfer of 100 PFE shares added $112.00
• The transfer of 60 TXN shares added $91.20
• The transfer of 26 UNP shares added $57.20
• The transfer of 22 GILD shares added $37.84
• From Increases
• DIS's dividend increase added $2.70
• NTT's dividend increase added $3.66
• O's dividend increase added $0.60
• WPC's dividend increase added $1.54
• PFE's dividend increase added $8.00
• PADI decreased by $695.46 to $6,775.97

Dividend Summary:

• Dividend income last month: $1,121.13
• Dividend income this month: $1,584.98
• Total dividend income year-to-date: $7,906.58
• Total dividend income all-time: $13,201.57

Markets:

Nov 30, 2015	DOW: 17,719.92 S&P 500: 2,096.93 10-YR BOND: 2.21%
Dec 31, 2015	DOW: 17,425.03 S&P 500:  10-YR BOND: 2.21%

In December, the Dow dropped 1.66% and the S&P 500 dropped 2.53%. In comparison, DivGro dropped 3.93%.

Portfolio: click on the triangle to see a snapshot of DivGro's state on 31 December 2015.

Goals Report: Below is a chart showing the final state of my 2015 goals. I achieved 5 of 8 goals.

• I failed miserably on my weight loss goal. This year, I have a more modest goal of losing a single stone (instead of 3). I'm targeting midyear (1 July) to reach this goal, then I'll try to sustain that weight throughout the rest of the year. 
• Unfortunately, I also fell short on my goal of hiking to Seattle and back. The 1,620 miles were 268 miles too far. On the positive side, I managed to hike 1,352 miles, averaging 3.7 miles per day. This year I'll be hiking from Johannesburg to Cape Town and back, which is 1,737 miles.
• The third miss is my goal of writing 6 articles for The DivNet. Despite missing the goal, I'm increasing the goal to writing 8 articles in 2016. 
• I easily achieved my goal of climbing the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, 30 times. In fact, I succeeded doing so 39 times, the equivalent of 6,338 floors!
• In 2015, I wrote 107 articles for DivGro, which included 44 premium articles for Seeking Alpha. This year, I'm increasing these goals to writing 120 DivGro articles and 52 premium articles for Seeking Alpha.
• I'm very happy with the way I crushed my dividend income goal! In 2015, I earned $7,907 in dividend income, almost $2,000 more than my goal of $6,000. This year's goal for dividend income is $10,800.
• DivGro's PADI increased to $8,018 on 25 December 2015, which easily beat my goal of reaching $7,500. Due to several tax-harvesting sells, DivGro's PADI dropped back down to $6,776. My goal this year is to increase PADI to $12,000 – a very challenging goal indeed, but one I'm very excited to attempt!

December Posts

I wrote a total of 13 articles in November. In case you missed any of those articles, here they are:

•   1 Dec: Recent Transfer: W.P. Carey, Inc. – Dividend Contender WPC has a 10-year dividend growth rate of 7.5%
•   4 Dec: Monthly Review: November 2015 – I started transferring stocks from my Scottrade account to DivGro!
•   7 Dec: Recent Transfer: Toronto-Dominion Bank – since 1990, TD has a 12% annualized dividend growth rate
•   8 Dec: 15 Dividend Increases, November 23 To December 4, 2015 – includes a dividend hike by DIS
• 13 Dec: Recent Transfer: Pfizer Inc – Health Care sector stock PFE recently made the CCC list again.
• 15 Dec: Recent Transfer: Texas Instruments, Inc. – TXN has a 10-year dividend growth rate of 30.1%!
• 17 Dec: Recent Transfer: Union Pacific Corporation – UNP has a 10-year dividend growth rate of nearly 20%!
• 18 Dec: Goals for 2016 – some really challenging goals for the coming year!
• 21 Dec: 7 Dividend Increases, December 7-18, 2015 – 3 DivGro stocks announce dividend increases! 
• 25 Dec: Recent Transfer: Gilead Sciences, Inc. – another Health Care sector stock for DivGro!
• 30 Dec: The Blogger's Dividend Growth Portfolio, 2015 Edition – JNJ tops the list of 60 dividend growth stocks 
• 31 Dec: Completing QCOM Tax-loss Harvesting – selling some QCOM shares to harvest tax losses.
• 31 Dec: Out With The Old – discarding my shares of VNR, ETP, APU, and SDRL.

Looking Ahead: I'm excited to enter my fourth year as a dividend growth investor and blogger! In January 2016, I'll continue to transfer stocks from my Scottrade account to DivGro. I also have lots of cash on hand and I'll be looking for excellent dividend growth stocks trading at a discount to fair value. Look for articles reporting on DivGro's performance in Q4-2015 and for 2015 fiscal year. 

Thanks for reading and take care, everybody!