Week In Review

At this point, it looks like both my stock portfolios will end down for the week. Although I'm still up quite a bit for the year on my IRA, I haven't quite regained all I lost on my taxable stock portfolio. Even though the total dollar value is 40% higher than last year, the increased value represents profits from stock trades since the first of this year, and extra cash added to my stock account.

The biggest change I've made in the past 30 days would be to add a shares of a Canadian Energy trust and a Real Estate investment trust, both of which pay dividends on a monthly instead of quarterly basis. Both appear to be solid companies and I think they'll work well towards reaching my goal of boosting monthly cash flows from dividends. I've noticed a lot of getting ahead in investing is all about cash flow. How quickly you turn over your money. When you pay out your cash to purchase shares of an investment, the quicker you get your money back, the better. That's why I love dividend stocks, because as long as the company is solid, you can look forward to a steady stream of dividend income for years and years to come. I could be perfectly satisfied with holding my stocks till the day I die, as long as the dividends keep rolling in.

Looking ahead, for the next couple of months, I'll be adding to my AT&T and BP stakes in my IRA account and will probably purchase more shares of PGH for my taxable portfolio. Nothing new on the job front, but I have been getting more responses to applications, so that's encouraging. Still working on eliminating my remaining credit card debt. Because of increased interest rates, I have canceled all but 2 of my credit cards and don't intend to take out any new ones. I think the credit card companies have all lost their minds recently and until I see some better offers, I'm avoiding using them all together.

I'm beginning to believe things are picking up with the economy, more in spite of, rather than because of recent government efforts. In the end, I believe legislation passed since the first of this year will ultimately lead to higher taxes than we've ever seen and create a tremendous drag on the economy. Just have to wait and see how it all plays out.