Friday, March 28, 2014

CENTERPOINT ENERGY (CNP) INCREASES DIVIDEND 14.5%!

Collected my first dividend payment from CNP for 2014 and was happy to see they've increased their payout by 14.5%.  According to their annual report, things are going quite well for CenterPoint.  I wrote a post last year about the low interest rates being good for utilities, since they rely heavily on financing for ongoing operations.  Given the Fed has declared interest in keeping rates low for the next few years, I'm still thinking utilities will do well.  Overall return for CNP was 24.7%, beating out the S&P 500 Utilities Index average of just 8.8%.  I've been a long term investor in CNP and I like what I read in their annual report, so I'll most likely continue to hold this stock for quite some time.

With 10% of the stocks in my current portfolio (HBI and CNP) increasing dividend payouts, I'm hopeful of seeing more from some of my other holdings before the year is out.  While dividend income continues to rise each month from ongoing cash investments and reinvested dividends, companies that increase their payouts can add quite dramatically to the rate of compounding over the years, so I'm understandably excited about this.  I've been reading a lot of articles about companies with big stockpiles of cash who are expected to start returning cash to shareholders through dividend increases and stock buybacks, so I'm pretty certain I'll see a least a couple more of my holdings increasing their payouts before the year is over.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

FIRST QUARTER DIVIDEND INCOME FOR 2014 UP OVER 300% COMPARED TO 2013!

Dividend income for the first quarter of 2014 will be more than four times the amount earned in the first quarter of last year, for an increase of a little over 300%!  While I'm as excited as the next person about gains in the stock market, I'm a lot more excited about eh increases in monthly cash flow from dividends from my current investment strategy.  Every time I think the news just can't get any better and the increases will have to start slowing down, it seems there's another jump in earnings.

I read more today about an expected correction in the market and considered diverting some dividends to cash savings.  The idea being to stockpile cash and wait for a better buying opportunity should the correction materialize.  However, I decided to stick with the program and continue reinvesting all dividend payments for the time being.  If the correction should occur, ongoing dividend income will purchase more shares at the lower prices and help reduce average price per share, so I can accomplish the same goals while continuing to build my current positions.

I'm currently looking for ways to come up with a lump sum of cash for investing to give my monthly cash flows a big one-time boost.  It worked well in the first quarter, boosting dividend income by 20% a month, so I intend to repeat the process for the rest of 2014, shooting for 20% increases every quarter.  I did the math and if I could continue this process over the next 10 years, I would replace my current income by year nine and double it by year ten.  Of course that would mean doubling dividend income every year for 10 years, which is pretty ambitious, but this year the double is already in the bag.  So I'm really working on doubling the third years income.  

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

HBI DIVIDEND UP 50%!

Just collected a dividend payment from Haines Brand Inc.
yesterday.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the payout had
increased by 50% since the last quarter!  While I’d expected
HBI to be a great long term holding, especially after they began
paying out dividends last year, I hadn’t really expected such a
dramatic increase in dividends in such a short time.  I get
excited by any increases in dividend income, whether from
reinvested dividends, or additional cash investments.
However,  I’m even more excited when I see companies
increasing their dividends and returning more money to
shareholders.

My stake in HBI is a result of a previous investment in Sara
Lee.  When Sara Lee spun off HBI to its shareholders, I kept
the stock even though they were not paying dividends at the
time.  I knew of HBI’s past performance before becoming a
part of Sara Lee and even though they inherited a lot of debt
from the spin off, I saw positive moves on the part of the people
in charge, so I held on to the stock.  So very glad I did.  I’ve
seen spectacular gains in the share price over the past two
years and as icing on the cake I’m now seeing spectacular gains
in cash flow from the dividends.

While I consider myself a dividend investor, I think it’s wise to
take advantage of other opportunities as they present
themselves.  Right now I’m hoping to see my investment in
MACK, a small pharmaceutical company specializing in
developing new cancer medications, take off and make the kind
of gains I’ve seen from HBI.  While I think the prospects are
good, only time will tell.  Purely a speculative play on my part.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

FINISHED FILING MY FEDERAL TAXES!

Just finished filing my federal taxes and will be getting a small refund!  While I'd like it to be much larger, I'm pretty happy about getting a refund at all.  I'll be looking to put the money to work as soon as it's deposited to my account.

Collected 3 more dividend payments this week from CNP, PFF and LLY.  Still have 7 more to go for the month of March.  My dividend income for 2014 will easily be double that of 2013.  While that in itself is exciting, I calculated what I'd be making if I could manage to double dividend income every year for the next 10 years.  While that probably won't happen, it's a goal to shoot for.  If I were to accomplish this goal, my income from dividends alone would be twice what I make from my job now!

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

QUARTERLY REVIEW

When I was putting my current investment plan together, I set
up three spreadsheets to track progress.  One spreadsheet
tracks monthly cash flow from dividends.  The second one is a
calender to track total number of dividend payments per
month.  The third spreadsheet tracks increases in total number
of shares held in each stock.  On this third spreadsheet I added
a final column for current share price.  Of course it was one of
those things where you start out with the best of intentions, but
alas I put in the current price about 6 months ago and never
updated until March 1st of this year.  It was quite an eye
opener.  I discovered that some of the issues that I’d avoided
adding additional cash purchases to, turned out to be some of
the best price gainers over the past 6 months.

Ever the one to learn from mistakes, I’ve decided to use this
knowledge to advantage by updating prices on a quarterly
basis and using the information to help decide where further
cash purchases will be made.  Of course I’m purchasing new
shares in each issue through reinvested dividends on a regular
basis, but the cash purchases provide the real boost to monthly
cash flows.  I figure it’s better to make additional purchases of
shares that have increased in value rather than increasing
holdings that have gone down in price.

With that in mind, I’ve put in an order for March 4th to
purchase additional shares in NCV, one of my monthly
dividend payers.  This purchase will nearly double my stake in
NCV and boost monthly cash flow by about 10%.  At the end
of June, I’ll repeat the process, investing in a holding with
rising share prices and purchasing enough shares to boost
income by at least an additional 10%.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

DIVIDEND INCOME FOR MARCH UP OVER 400%!

March 1st I collected my first 7 of 17 dividend payments and have already exceeded total dividend income for the month of March 2013.  By the time I collect the remaining 10 dividend payments for the remainder of the month, income will be up over 300% compared to last year!  I'll be earning more than 4 times the cash from dividends!  Easy to see, I'm excited about this.  I continue to be amazed at how well this whole investment plan has worked out.  Of course we've had a nice run with the stock market during the past year.  However, I'm not comparing gains in share prices here.  I'm evaluating the effectiveness of the whole plan according to monthly cash flow, because it's the monthly cash flow that I'll eventually be wanting to collect and live off of.  Gains in share prices are nice, but you have to sell and create a taxable event to collect.  I'm much happier to see gains in monthly cash flows.

March will be the biggest month so far for dividend income in 2014.  Although after re-adjusting my dividend calender, it looks like I'll have 2 more months with 17 dividends each.  Those two months will exceed income for March due to reinvested dividends and additional cash investments.  It's an ever escalating process, with cash flow increasing every single month.  With a major setback in the market, it is possible to see dividend cuts or suspensions, however, I've done my best to avoid such scenarios by picking issues that weathered past financial distress and continued paying.  

Will be glad to see winter finally coming to an end, but I am excited about the rest of the month.  While I'm quite happy with the payments I've collected so far, I'm looking forward to the remaining 10 dividends!