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Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Monthly Review: March 2016

March was a busy month for DivGro. Following the market's downturn in January and February, I doubled down on no fewer than 6 of my existing holdings, equating to about $15,000 of fresh capital deployed.

I'm busy consolidating several portfolios so I can manage my dividend paying stocks using the investment strategies developed for DivGro. I'm not actually moving stocks between accounts. Rather, I'm recording transaction history and updating dividend income and projected dividend income totals.

As always, I'm updating my Performance page with the most recent month's statistics.

March Highlights

As an end-of-quarter month, March was another record-setting month. I recorded dividend income totaling $2,633. Of this amount, $1,150 is from dividends received in March and $1,483 is from past dividends recorded. No fewer than 33 of my stocks had dividend payments this month!

Projected monthly income increased to $847. Assuming no changes in dividend payments, this means DivGro will produce $847 per month in perpetuity! Of course, the idea with dividend growth investing is that dividends will grow over time and (at least) keep pace with inflation. DivGro's average yield on cost (YoC) if 4.47%, significantly above the current U.S. inflation rate of 1.02%.

Here is DivGro's projected monthly dividend income (red line) plotted against monthly dividends:


Comparing dividend income by month is another way to see progress:


Dividend income of March 2016 is 77% higher than the amount I received in March 2015.

Transactions:
  • Purchases
  • Transfers
  • Sales
    • None
  • Dividends
    • 2016-03-01: Cash Dividend Received AFL: $20.50
    • 2016-03-01: Cash Dividend Received HP: $48.13
    • 2016-03-01: Cash Dividend Received INTC: $31.20
    • 2016-03-01: Cash Dividend Received CMI: $18.53
    • 2016-03-01: Cash Dividend Received F: $67.50
    • 2016-03-01: Special Dividend Received F: $112.50
    • 2016-03-01: Cash Dividend Received NPM: $25.20
    • 2016-03-02: Cash Dividend Received PFE: $30.00
    • 2016-03-08: Cash Dividend Received JNJ: $22.50
    • 2016-03-08: Cash Dividend Received MIC: $34.50
    • 2016-03-10: Cash Dividend Received TGT: $22.40
    • 2016-03-10: Cash Dividend Received MSFT: $28.80
    • 2016-03-10: Cash Dividend Received IBM: $39.00
    • 2016-03-10: Cash Dividend Received XOM: $47.45
    • 2016-03-10: Cash Dividend Received CVX: $53.50
    • 2016-03-11: Cash Dividend Received WBA: $15.84
    • 2016-03-15: Cash Dividend Received MAIN: $41.40
    • 2016-03-15: Cash Dividend Received STAG: $25.20
    • 2016-03-15: Cash Dividend Received O: $19.85
    • 2016-03-15: Cash Dividend Received MCD: $24.03
    • 2016-03-15: Cash Dividend Received AVA: $25.69
    • 2016-03-15: Cash Dividend Received MDP: $147.00
    • 2016-03-21: Cash Dividend Received D: $25.20
    • 2016-03-23: Cash Dividend Received QCOM: $11.59
    • 2016-03-24: Cash Dividend Received NIE: $7.11
    • 2016-03-30: Cash Dividend Received GILD: $9.46
    • 2016-03-30: Cash Dividend Received TROW: $16.20
    • 2016-03-31: Cash Dividend Received UNP: $14.30
    • 2016-03-31: Cash Dividend Received EXG: $40.65
    • 2016-03-31: Cash Dividend Received TRV: $95.67
    • 2016-03-31: Cash Dividend Received ES: $26.70
    • 2016-03-31: Cash Dividend Received RS: $16.00
    • 2016-03-31: Cash Dividend Received BBL: $32.00
    • 2016-03-31: Cash Dividend Received DLR: $42.24
  • Past Dividends
    • 2016-03-02: Transfer Past Dividends NIE: $531.18
    • 2016-03-08: Transfer Past Dividends EXG: $951.54
  • Deposits
    • 2016-03-29: April Cash Deposit: $2,000.00
  • Past Deposits
    • 2016-03-02: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $4,212.19
    • 2016-03-08: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $4,962.85
    • 2016-03-09: Consolidation Cash Deposit: $19,712.55
    • 2016-03-11: Transfer Past Cash Deposit: $2,553.61
Changes in Projected Annual Dividend Income (PADI):
  • From Purchases
    • The purchase of 44 ABBV shares added $100.32.
    • The purchase of 35 TROW shares added $5.25.
    • The purchase of 40 MIC shares added $4.40.
    • The purchase of 140 STWD shares added $7.00.
    • The purchase of 28 GILD shares added $6.72.
    • The purchase of 30 UNP shares added $6.00.
  • From Transfers
    • The transfer of 237 NIE shares added $360.24.
    • The transfer of 500 EXG shares added $487.80.
    • The transfer of 16 MMM shares added $71.04.
  • From Increases
    • GD's dividend increase added $9.80.
    • QCOM's dividend increase added $20.00.
    • O's dividend increase added $0.60.
    • WPC's dividend increase added $1.54.
  • From Decreases
    • BBL's dividend decrease subtracted $184.00.
  • PADI increased by $1,511.89 to $10,163.06.
Notice that I've decreased PADI by $184 this month after BHP Billiton (NYSE:BBL) slashed its dividend by 75%. Usually, I sell my shares of a company following a dividend cut, such as when ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) cut its dividend by 66%. However, BBL still yields nearly 7% 3% following its dividend cut, so I'm going to hang onto my shares for a while longer. 

Dividend Summary:
  • Dividend income last month: $2,241.51
  • Dividend income this month: $2,633.17
  • Total dividend income year-to-date: $5,969.95
  • Total dividend income all-time: $19,074.00
Markets:
Feb 29, 2016
DOW: 16,516.50S&P 500: 1,932.2310-YR BOND: 1.74%
Mar 31, 2016
DOW: 17,685.09S&P 500: 2,059.7410-YR BOND: 1.79%

In March, the Dow gained 7.08% and the S&P 500 gained 6.60%.




Portfolio: Here is a snapshot of DivGro's state on 31 March 2016:


Goals Report

I've set some challenging goals for 2016:
  1. PADI: Increase projected annual dividend income to $12,000.
  2. Dividends: Earn $10,800 in dividend income.
  3. Posts: Post 120 articles on my DivGro blog.
  4. Seeking: Write 52 premium articles for Seeking Alpha.
  5. DivNet: Write 8 articles for The DivNet.
The last gauge is a reference – it indicates where the other gauges should be after 91 out of 366 days. I'm a little ahead of schedule with PADI an on track with Dividends. After a productive month, I'm doing great on Posts and Seeking. This month, I'll find some time to write for DivNet

March Posts

I wrote a total of 16 articles in March. In case you missed any of them, here they are:
Looking Ahead: I'm continuing the process of consolidating dividend paying stocks I hold in a couple of IRA accounts with those in DivGro. I still have a good portion of cash on hand, so I'll be looking for good opportunities to add to my holdings. 

Thanks for reading and take care, everybody!

10 comments:

  1. Awesome work Divgro! Looking forward to the day I earn over $10k in a single year. I hopefully will be there within a couple years. A side note. I show BBL's new dividend around 3%, not 7% like you indicate above.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting. I think you're right. Seems like many financial sites miscalculate the yield. Mmm... I'll have to reconsider my thinking on this one. Thanks for the comment!

      Delete
  2. Great numbers Divgro, what was the source of the extra dividend income vs last quarter ? It looks like you had about $760 or so last quarter, that's a massive difference. I'm guessing the special dividend from Ford helped some in that department, was the rest just regular purchases adding up?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ford had a special dividend, yes, but about half of my holdings (this month 33 of 59) pay dividends in March, June, September and December. These are end-of-quarter months when I receive a much larger dividend total than the other months.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  3. Fantastic monthly dividend income Ferdi. I also like the gauges, it's a nice touch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Investment Hunting. I'm very pleased with receiving, for the first time, dividend income above $1,000! (The other amount is just recording past dividend for the stocks I'm consolidating with DivGro).

      Delete
  4. Awesome stuff Ferdi. Hitting that $1k mark for March is impressive. We're getting somewhat close for March but we're still a long ways away from getting the other two months of the quarter to those levels. All in due time though. All the best.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. $1k is very exciting! Yes, the other months are much lower. Consider $847 of projected monthly income, though, I'm actually close to averaging $1k a month, which is my goal for the end of 2016.

      Take care and thanks for visiting!

      Delete
  5. Nice month Ferdi!

    How do you come up with a 7% yield on BBL after the cut? It's only a semi annual distribution, so I wouldn't expect more than $0.64/share this year.

    Pretty sure the yield's more like 3%...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're right, catfishwizard -- as I mentioned above, its a mistake which I'll fix...

      Take care and thanks for visiting and commenting!

      Delete

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