Recent Sell: Target Corporation

In my latest Pulse article, Target Corporation (TGT) turned out to be the fifth largest position in DivGro. The reason is that in May, I added shares to my TGT position due to the assignment of put options.

Before this trade, I owned 340 shares of TGT. I decided to sell 40 shares and so reduce my TGT position to 300 shares. This short article presents a summary of the trades and dividends received.

Options Update: June 2017

Welcome to my options update for June!

I report my options trades monthly, usually shortly after options expiration Friday. I list assigned, expired, closed, and rolled options and I report new options. Finally, I provide a running tally of DivGro's options income to date and I discuss the progress I'm making towards achieving my 2017 options income goal.

In last month's option update I added $1,635 to my tally of secured options income. This month I'm adding only $469, but I'm making great progress to achieving my goal of earning $8,400 in options income in 2017.

Now Inviting Guest Posts

Last month I surveyed readers to determine if DivGro should publish guest posts. Most respondents supported the idea and I decided to start hosting guest posts in July 2017.

I added a Guest Posts page with guidelines for prospective guest authors and to explain the submission process. The page briefly explains the review process and lists some ideas for article topics.

 If you're interested in writing a guest post for DivGro, please contact me.

4 Dividend Increases: June 19-23, 2017

Companies that regularly increase dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings.

Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list is one way to identify candidates for further analysis.

In the past few weeks, four companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends.

Recent Sell: STAG Industrial

In my monthly Pulse articles, I rank all the stocks in DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks. I use an elaborate system to ranks stocks, using fundamental data from the CCC list and sources like Morningstar, finbox.io, Simply Wall St, and F.A.S.T. Graphs.

For several months now, STAG Industrial (STAG) was ranked at the bottom of all the stocks in my portfolio. The REIT earned only one star in my 7-star rating system. 

On the other hand, STAG has been a great performer for DivGro. It yields 5% and pays monthly dividends, which are two reasons to like the STAG!

So why did I sell all my STAG shares?

10 Dividend Increases: June 5-16, 2017

Companies that regularly raise dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings.

Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list helps me identify candidates for further analysis.

Recently, ten companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends, including three of my DivGro holdings.

DivGro Pulse: June 2017

Welcome to another Pulse article! The goal of my monthly Pulse articles is to monitor the health of DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks. These articles are strategy focused and help me to identify undervalued stocks suitable for further investment. I also want to identify underperforming stocks, which should be monitored carefully. If a stock underperforms for a prolonged period of time, it should be removed from my portfolio.

Because of how I schedule my other monthly articles, I like to publish my pulse articles mid-month. Updating the fair values of every stock in DivGro takes several hours to complete, as I perform a multi-stage Dividend Discount Model analysis, a Gordon Growth Model analysis, and an analysis of dividend safety. I also consider fair value estimates and price targets available elsewhere, such as those from Morningstar, finbox.io, and S&P Capital IQ.

I hope you find my pulse articles worth the read!

Top Holdings of Dividend ETFs (June 2017 Edition)

In December last year, I presented the Top Holdings of Dividend ETFs, a virtual portfolio of dividend growth stocks compiled from 27 ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that invest in dividend-paying stocks. By analyzing the top 25 holdings in each ETF and assigning weights proportional to the size of each holding, it is possible to rank them and so find the top holdings of all these dividend ETFs.

This article presents an updated list for June 2017 compiled from 28 dividend ETFs. I present the top 50 holdings along with key statistics and fair value estimates from Morningstar.

Monthly Review of DivGro: May 2017

Welcome to monthly review number 53 of DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks!

After last month's disappointing total, I'm happy to say that I added dividend income totaling $1,278 in May.

This amount includes $460 in past dividends and $818 in new dividends. Past dividends are from a stock in one of my wife's IRA's, which I'm now managing as part of DivGro.

10 Dividend Growth Stocks For June 2017

As a dividend growth investor, I love David Fish's CCC list of dividend growth stocks trading on U.S exchanges. Updated every month, the CCC list it contains more than 800 stocks trading with at least five consecutive years of higher dividend payments. The accompanying spreadsheet provides key statistics of the CCC stocks.

In my monthly 10 Dividend Growth Stock series, I identify 10 CCC stocks worthy of further research. To create the list, I trim the CCC list using various screens. I rank the trimmed list and assign a 7-star rating to each stock. Stocks rated 5 stars or better are worthy of further analysis.

4 Dividend Increases: May 29-June 2, 2017

Companies that regularly raise dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings.

Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list helps me identify candidates for further analysis.
In the past week, 4 companies on my watch list announced dividend increases.

500

The last time I wrote a milestones article, I had just crossed half million page views. I posted the article (number 370 on DivGro) on 17 July 2016. Today's article is number 500 and I'm closing in on 850,000 page views!

Page views and number of articles are nice numbers to track and I'm happy to celebrate milestones, but DivGro is about generating a reliable and growing dividend income stream and I'm much more interested in seeing how DivGro's projected annual dividend income increases over time.

As with all these milestone articles, I hope to encourage other dividend growth investment (DGI) bloggers and to help this wonderful community go from strength to strength!

Options Update: May 2017

I report my options trading activity monthly, usually shortly after options expiration Friday. Doing so allows me to report on expired or assigned options. I also report new options trades and provide a running tally of DivGro's options income to date.

In last month's option update I added $918 to my tally of secured options income. This month I'm adding $1,635 more. I'm getting close to achieving my goal of earning $8,400 in options income in 2017. At this pace, I'll have to revise my goal upwards! Is it realistic to go for $12,000 instead? I wonder.

In May, two options got assigned, two expired, and I closed one option early. Also, I rolled forward three trades and sold one put. Following are details of all my options trades.

Results of My Guest Posts Survey

Earlier this month I asked readers to express their thoughts on whether DivGro should publish guest posts.

I posed questions like Would adding guest posts be helpful? and Would other dividend growth (DG) bloggers want to write guest posts for DivGro?

Today's post answers these questions and provides a summary of the survey results.

9 Dividend Increases: May 22-26, 2017

Companies that regularly increase dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings.

Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list is one way to identify candidates for further analysis.

In the past week, 9 companies on my watch list announced dividend increases.

8 Dividend Increases: May 15-19, 2017

Companies can only increase their dividends regularly if they sufficiently grow earnings.
I like monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks because I consider such stocks to be candidates for further analysis.

Recently, 8 companies on my watch list announced dividend increases, including 2 of my DivGro holdings.

Recent Transfer: INTC

Intel Corporation (INTC) is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Intel makes motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. INTC the world's largest and highest valued semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue.

INTC pays quarterly dividends in the months of March, June, September, and December. Recently, the company increased its dividend by 4.81% to 27.25¢ per share. At $35.40, INTC yields 3.08%.

The stock is no longer on the CCC list because the company failed to increase the dividend in 2014. With increases in 2019 and 2020, INTC will once again earn Dividend Challenger status.

Monthly Review of DivGro: April 2017

Welcome to another monthly review of DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks. I founded DivGro in January 2013 to generate a reliable and growing dividend stream, and this is monthly review number 52!

After last month's record-breaking dividend income total, April's total was quite disappointing. As a matter of fact, the last time I earned less than $415 in a single month was way back in October 2015.

So why the big drop?

The main reason is that I closed my PennantPark Investment (PNNT) position in February and so gave up a fairly large dividend. Specifically, in April 2016, I collected $531 just from PNNT... and dividend income totaling $651. This month, without the boost from PNNT, I collected only $414.

Options Update: April 2017

I report my options trading activity monthly, usually after options expiration Friday. Doing so allows me to report on expired or assigned options. I also report new options trades and provide a running tally of DivGro's options income to date.

Things are still hectic, as I seem to have more work to do than time to do these days. So this update is a bit late, once again, as May's options expiration Friday is upon us!

In my options update for March, I reported on two option assignments, one options expiration, three rolled trades, and one put option trade. My options trading activity was rather light in March, so I added only $304 to my tally of secured options income.

In contrast, April's options trading activity was quite heavy!

16 Dividend Increases: May 8-12, 2017

Companies can only raise their dividends regularly if earnings grow sufficiently.

I like monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks because I consider such stocks to be candidates for further analysis.

In the last week, 16 companies on my watch list announced dividend increases.

10 Dividend Growth Stocks For May 2017

David Fish maintains a list of stocks with at least five consecutive years of paying higher dividends. Colloquially called the CCC list, it contains more than 800 dividend growth stocks trading on U.S. exchanges. The CCC list and the accompanying spreadsheet is a wonderful source for dividend growth investors and I've been using it for years.

In my monthly 10 Dividend Growth Stock series, I identify 10 CCC stocks worthy of further research. To create the list, I trim the CCC list using various screens. I rank the trimmed list and assign a 7-star rating to each stock. Stocks rated 5 stars or better are worthy of further analysis.

16 Dividend Increases: May 1-5, 2017

Companies that regularly increase dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings.

I monitor dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks to identify candidates for further analysis.

This week, 16 companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends, including two of the stocks I own. Four of the sixteen stocks announced double-digit percentage increases.

Guess Posts on DivGro?

Today's post posts a question to you, my DivGro readers. And the question is one that requires some action if you want to help guide the future of DivGro.

I founded DivGro in January 2013 and joined a growing community of dividend growth (DG) bloggers tracking their portfolios online.

By interacting with like-minded investors, I've become a better DG investor. I've learned a tremendous amount about DG investing, how to value dividend stocks, and, frankly, the benefits of blogging.

DivGro Pulse: April/May 2017

I decided to combine the April and May editions of DivGro Pulse, as we'll be taking a vacation break in mid-May when I usually publish pulse articles.

Pulse articles are strategy focused. I update fair value estimates for every stock in my portfolio and use the information to identify undervalued stocks suitable for further investment.

Additionally, I review the recent performance of stocks in my portfolio to see if any of them are performing poorly. If so, I need to take appropriate action.

28 Dividend Increases: April 24-28, 2017 (Part 2: Non-Financials)

Companies that regularly increase their dividend show confidence in their ability to grow earnings. I monitor dividend increases to identify candidates for further analysis.

In the last week, 28 companies on my watch list announced dividend increases, including three of the stocks I hold in my portfolio.

Part 1 of this article covered stocks in the Financials sector. This is Part 2, which covers the non-Financials.