Thursday, November 27, 2014

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Here's hoping everyone has a happy Thanksgiving holiday!  I had a wonderful time at our family dinner, lot's of great food and good company.  Everyone prepares food for our family meal.  This year I made Paula Dean's corn casserole and a broccoli rice and cheese casserole and picked up a couple of pumpkin pies from the bakery.  There was way more food than we could possibly eat, but we had a good meal and a great visit.  Especially enjoyed seeing a couple of my great nieces and a great nephew, don't get to see them nearly as much as I'd like.

Got home and fixed Pickles, the precocious chihuahua, some grilled chicken for his Thanksgiving dinner.  He's sleeping it off as I write.  I'm really thankful for my family and my little buddy Pickles who's part of the family.

Had even more to be thankful for.  My big three end of the month dividends came in today, due to the holiday weekend I'm guessing.  At any rate, picked up more shares of AOD and gained cash for the purchase of stakes in SDY and DIA, so it's been a great day all around.  Looking forward to Christmas.   

Monday, November 24, 2014

SOLD MACK TO LOCK IN 20% GAIN

Sold my speculative stake in MACK pharmaceuticals to lock in 20% gain.  Decided to reinvest the proceeds in additional shares of NCZ.  This will boost monthly dividend income by 3%.  While none of my current fund holdings have been stellar performers, NCZ has proven a good source of monthly cash flow so it seems to be the best means or redeploying the cash from the sale of MACK.  

Have been working on my investment plan for the new year as I mentioned in earlier posts.  Everything is pretty well in place.  My big goals for next year are to purchase stakes in SDY and DIA for my IRA and taxable account respectively.  I also hope to complete the purchase of stakes in my "wish list" stocks mentioned in earlier posts.  The 7 stocks (INTC, CLX, WPZ, ADP, GPC and MSEX) along with the 2 funds mentioned above will make up the core of my long term portfolio along with UVE, GE, NYCB and LLY.  The other 8 holdings in my 20 stock portfolio will change out from time to time.  Have set my plan for 2015 in motion, including a new personal budget targeting increased savings and debt payoff.  

2015 is already looking to be a much better year, now if I could just find that new job. :0)

Saturday, November 15, 2014

CRF AND CLM PROPOSED REVERSE STOCK SPLIT

Received notice in the mail today of special shareholder's meetings for CRF and CLM on December 8th to vote on a proposed one-for-four reverse stock split.  I can't say I'm surprised by the move, the share price had fallen so low that I expected such a move.  I don't expect to sell any shares and I've voted in favor of the move.  While I'm not expecting this to actually improve performance of the fund, I still think the underlying assets of the two funds are companies I like having investments in, so I'll keep my shares for now.  

Should the proposal be approved, the funds are not planning to issue fractional shares, so any excess of whole shares would be paid to shareholders in cash.  Which works to my advantage in a way.  I'd already diverted dividend income to purchase shares of DIA and SDY, so any cash added to my account from the reverse stock split will go towards the purchase of the new funds.

My biggest concern was the dividend yield.  However, should the dollar amount of dividends remain the same, then my current yield on dollars invested should remain the same.  In other words, if the dividend on 12 shares was $12 and a one-for-four reverse stock split reduced the number of shares to 3, as long as the dividend was $12 on the 3 new shares, your yield on dollars invested would remain the same.  Yield would drop dramatically for new investors, since share price has increased.  I'll have to see what happens to the dividend after this proposal is voted on.  Share price is not as relevant to my investment strategy as cash flow at the present time.  If the reverse stock split should negatively affect my monthly cash flow from dividend income, then it may precipitate a sale of my stake in the two funds.  For now I'm taking a wait and see approach.  I agree that the move was necessary and should have some benefits for the funds and shareholders.

Monday, November 10, 2014

2014 PORTFOLIO PERFORMANCE IN REVIEW

According to year end projections, 2014 has been a great year for my investments!  Total portfolio value increased by over 25%, total number of shares owned increased over 30% and dividend income is up over 100%!  Not bad at all, especially considering the financial setbacks I had back in July that forced me to sell some shares to make ends meet.  I'm most excited about the increase in dividend income, more than double the amount received in 2013!  I don't attribute this to any special brilliance on my part, it was more a matter of having a plan and sticking to it.  

The best performing stock for the year was UVE, with and increase of 249%, not counting reinvested dividends!  In an earlier post I mentioned that I'd sold enough shares of UVE to pull out all my original cash investment, even so the stock remains one of my largest holdings.  Other solid performers include GE, LLY, NYCB, RRD, HWBK and MACK.  Dollar wise, my top ten holdings include UVE, GE, LLY, NYCB, HWBK, RRD, CLM, CRF, NCZ and PHK.  

Individual stocks did quite well during the year whereas stock and bond funds in my portfolio did poorly.  However, I purchased the funds for their monthly dividend income which held up quite well, so it's not all bad news.  I'll be looking to replace the poor performing funds with low cost index funds in the coming year.  Most likely I'll stop reinvesting dividends in these funds and divert the payments to cash balances to purchase new funds.  I'm working on my 2015 investment plan now.  

Saturday, November 1, 2014

NOVEMBER KICKS OFF WITH 5 DIVIDEND PAYMENTS!

Started off the first of November with 5 dividend payments including the first dividend from EGAS!  Will collect 7 more payments for the remainder of November, for a total of 12 or one dividend every 2.5 days of the month.  Add in the 2 paydays from work and I'll get paid 14 times!  Dividend income continues to increase 1% each month from reinvested dividends alone.  The more shares accumulated from reinvested dividends, the more income, the more income, the more shares accumulated.  Simple formula for a successful investment plan.

Speaking of investment plans, it's time to start working on my plan for 2015.  While I had some setbacks in 2014, I was able to stick with most of the plan and have had pretty good success.  Now it's time to set new goals and update my plan for the new year.