Tuesday, March 31, 2015

GE TO SPIN OFF REMAINDER OF FINANCE DIVISION TO SHAREHOLDERS LATER THIS YEAR

Just read the latest report from GE.  I didn't know until now that GE was spinning off their finance division in the form of IPO Synchrony Financial.  GE still owns 85% of Synchrony Financial (SYF) which it plans to spin off to shareholders later this year.  Could be a good thing.  I'm always happy to pick up a new stock through spin offs.  Just have to wait and see how it all plays out.  

Also read a prediction of a major collapse in the U.S. dollar.  With such a run up in the national debt under the Obama administration, I wouldn't be surprised to see this happen.  Hopefully it won't, but it would be a good idea to hedge against the possibility by putting some money in hard assets like real estate or gold.  Unfortunately that is not possible for me right now, but I will be looking in to opening a savings account in Canada.  Couldn't hurt...

Monday, March 30, 2015

MONTH OF MARCH GOING OUT LIKE A LION!

The month of March is set to go out like a lion!  Not only is the market and my account balances up, but I'm set to collect a whopping 7 dividend payments on the last day of the month!  I'm having all dividends reinvested to build positions in current holdings, but it's still exciting to watch the payments roll in.  It's also exciting to see the number of shares increase with no "out of pocket" money on my part.

I did schedule a purchase of additional shares of ROYT for tomorrow.  With the trust being oversold and share prices so low, I figure I'll benefit when oil prices begin to rise.  In the mean time I'm content to collect the small monthly dividends.  Should see those rise as well after the turn around in oil.  May not happen for a while, but I'm content to wait it out.  For a small investment, this could turn in to a big money maker for my portfolio.  Even if it should go bust, which I think is unlikely, it wouldn't have much of an impact on my overall portfolio.  So I'm willing to take a risk on this one.

The big dividend payout the last day of March will be followed up by another big day of dividends on April 1st (no fooling).  EGAS is set to pay their dividend of 13.5 cents per share on April 2nd.  Don't quite know what's going on there.  They were paying monthly, but paid 2 dividends in December and skipped a couple of payments.  However, I'm not too concerned since the dividend of 13.5 cents per share is up from the previous monthly dividends of 4.5 cents per share.  Perhaps their switching to a quarterly payout.  I guess we'll see.  

Friday, March 20, 2015

BOOSTED MONTHLY DIVIDEND INCOME BY 3%!

Took advantage of a small windfall of cash to boost monthly dividend income by over 3%!  I purchased additional shares of AOD, which is one of my best performing funds.  Cash flow from new shares should begin in April.

So far so good with the new job.  Got some great people to work with and I can put the bad experiences of the past 6 years behind me.  I'm all about moving forward just now.  The positive thinking has definitely helped, whether it's part of a universal law of attraction, or it just makes opportunities more obvious and makes you a better person to be around, I'm not exactly sure.  However, the fact remains when I changed my way of thinking, things began to change for the better.  So no matter the reasons, the end results are worth keeping the whole thing going.

While the stock market seems to be floundering in uncertainty this month, I can't help but think that I'm picking up more shares with my reinvested dividends while prices are down.  Which also boosts overall yield, so it's not entirely bad news.

Friday, March 13, 2015

ELEVEN DIVIDENDS FOR MARCH, NINE MORE TO GO!

Dividend payments this week from PDLI and ROYT brought the total number of payments for March to eleven!  Still have 9 more payments coming in before the end of the month!  I was excited back in 2013 to see two or three dividends per month when I started rebuilding my portfolio.  Now I'm ecstatic to have months with 20 dividends!

My current plan is to focus on building positions in the stocks I already hold.  However, I'm very tempted to add Aflac (AFL) to my IRA and may end up doing so later in the year.  I've owned shares of AFL in the past and made a great profit on the sale.  I think it's still a good investment and it has plenty of room to continue growing the dividend.  

With stock prices dropping, I'm hoping to add as many shares as I can to boost dividend yields while prices are low.  Took a hit when ROYT lowered its' monthly dividend, but I expected that to happen with current oil prices.  ROYT was more of a speculative ploy, so any dividend is really a plus in this case.  We'll see whether I was right or wrong moving forward.  In any case, my position is only a very small part of my portfolio, so in this case it could go to zero and I wouldn't have lost much.  On the other hand, should oil prices rise and the company's fortunes turn for the good, I could make a nice profit from the shares or continue to hold for the dividend.  

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

COLLECTED 2 MORE DIVIDEND PAYMENTS FOR MARCH!

Collected dividends from CNP and LLY today, for a total of 9 dividend payments for the month of March.  Still have 11 more payments coming in before the end of the month, for a total of 20!  I had expected monthly cash flow to drop some with the sale of some shares in CRF and CLM, but I've more than made up for any loss by the share price increases in GLW and SPHD.  Both of the new stocks start paying dividends this month and should offset the loss of some of the monthly income from the two funds.

At the first of the year I set out to get a new job.  I'm happy to report that I found two new jobs doing what I wanted to do.  Not only will my income go up, but job satisfaction will surely improve since I'll be working where I wanted to work.  Benefits with both jobs are much better than my previous job as well, so I'm pretty happy about that too.  When you make up your mind to do something, you can do it, you just have to stick to the plan.

Just finished another paid survey this morning on SendEarnings.com, so I'll be collecting another check from them this month.  Earned this check in record time by doing paid surveys and using printed coupons.  While I don't make a great deal of money with SendEarnings, it's easy to do and I sure enjoy the checks that I get in the mail!

Sunday, March 1, 2015

SEVEN DIVIDEND PAYMENTS FOR THE FIRST OF MARCH!

Kicked off the first of March with a whopping 7 dividend payments!  Re-invested all but one payment from NCZ.  Was most happy to see UVE posted profits of $0.59 per share, beating the Thomas Reuters estimate of $0.52 by 7 cents per share.  The company also increased its' quarterly dividend by 20%, from 10 cents to 12 cents per share.  I sold shares of UVE last year and pulled out all my original cash investment, so the stake I hold now is like playing with the house's money.  It's been very profitable!  This is one of my core holdings.

As it turned out, I did capture the dividends from the shares of CRF and CLM I sold last month to buy GLW and SPHD.  So I timed it just right to collect the most recent dividends from all four stocks, since I got in to GLW and SPHD in time to capture their upcoming dividends.  Finally got it right!

My total dividend payments per year is now up to 192.  Which means I'll collect an average of 16 dividends per month or a dividend every 1.9 days!  Now it's simply a matter of building up each stock holding to boost the payments.  Re-invested dividends are increasing my monthly cash flow by 1% a month, which isn't bad, but I'll be looking for ways to boost cash investments throughout the year.  Regardless of how that works out, it's nice to see cash flow increasing month after month!