FEBRUARY DIVIDEND INCOME UP NEARLY 80% OVER FEBRUARY 2017!

Just finished comparing cash flow from dividends for the month of February 2018 to that of 2017 and am pleased to report nearly an 80% increase!  This is largely due to increased investments throughout 2017 and reinvested dividends along with dividend increases from some stocks.  Dividends for February also increased 4% over January of this year, even though I received one less dividend payment this month.  

AGNC and QYLD played a large part in increased monthly cash flows.  Just completed the purchase of more shares in AGNC, at the lower price, to reduce my average price per share.  May use my tax refund to add additional shares of QLYD, although it's not as easy for me to buy because of some odd rules my investment company has in regards to the purchase of their shares.  Not really sure why they do it, but I can only purchase shares of QYLD by placing a limit order.  However, it worked out very well with my initial purchase, so I'm not too concerned about doing it again.  I can always add more shares through reinvested dividends, which I did today with their first dividend payment.

Although the stock market can't seem to decide which way it wants to go, I'm not too concerned as long as monthly cash flow keeps growing.  As long as stock prices are down, I'll be able to add more income producing shares with available cash and reinvested dividends, so I wouldn't mind if it lagged for the rest of the year.

FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DIVIDENDS PER YEAR IS ENOUGH.

I had planned on adding shares of EVV to my IRA account which would have added another 12 dividend payments per year to my portfolio.  However, after giving it some thought, I decided that 520 dividends per year is enough.  I'm going to concentrate more on building current positions instead.  With the recent down market, I've gotten a little help in that regard, since reinvested dividends buy more shares at the lower prices.

Had a little extra cash in savings, so I decided to put that to work by purchasing more shares of AGNC.  With their yield over 11%, I'll earn a lot more money per month than if I'd left it in the savings account.  I'm looking forward to putting my small tax refund to work as well.  I'm leaning towards buying more shares of NLY since the price has dropped from my initial purchase.  It would reduce my cost basis and increase overall yield, so I don't see how I could go wrong with that.  

This downturn in the market brought home the need for me to pay a bit more attention to reducing cost basis on all my investments where possible.  In the case of NLY, I'm investing more cash out of pocket, which will bring my average price per share down rapidly.  However, in most cases where I overpaid, I'm simply reinvesting dividends at the lower prices.  Each time a dividend is reinvested on stocks that have dropped in price, the average price per share goes down.  Reducing cost basis makes it much more likely you'll come out ahead when the market goes up again.  The other side of that coin is, where I bought stocks that were down and have seen a big increase in share price, the average price per share goes up with reinvested dividends.  In cases like these, I have to decide whether it's worth paying a higher price or whether I'd be better off to take the dividends in cash.  

USED LIMIT ORDER TO BUY QYLD AT LOWER PRICE!

With the stock market still trying to decide whether to go up or down, I took advantage of the volatility and used a limit order to purchase my stake in QYLD.  I set the purchase price lower than the quote price and the jittery market did the rest, letting me buy in at the lower price, then immediately going back up putting me in the black on the first day of purchase!  I may have to use limit orders more often.  I've known about them for quite some time but never took advantage of it.  Now that I've actually used it to my advantage, I can see where it could be quite useful for future stock purchases and sales.

Was also happy to see GLW increased it's dividend again this year.  This year's increase is up by 16% over their last quarterly dividend.  I've trade GLW several times in the past, always making a profit, but the stake I own now I've held for quite some time.  I'm taking more of a buy and hold approach this time around and it looks as though it will pay off in the long run as well.

Even though most of my holdings are trending up, my portfolio is still down considerably from a couple of weeks ago.  So I'm hoping to pick up bargain prices on more shares before they return to previous highs.  While I will be investing some cash out of pocket, I'll mostly be increasing number of shares held through reinvested dividends.  That's probably for the best, since there are no commissions on reinvested dividends.

Collected my first dividend from AGNC and am pleased to report it was a nice tidy sum!  Their high yield monthly dividend will provide a significant boost to monthly and annual dividend income.  The cash flow from AGNC, along with NLY, QYLD and EVV should help make 2018 a very good year!

Capital One has decided to turn over it's investment business to ETRADE later this year, so I'll have to get used to a new brokerage.  I can't imagine it is that much different from what I'm used to and ETRADE has a very good reputation.  I'm looking forward to the change.  It will be nice to be dealing with more of a mainstream brokerage.  Although I'm a little surprised Capital One, with all their resources, couldn't make a go of it.  Perhaps they decided it was better to stick to their mainstream business.

It was good to see how my portfolio weathered this latest storm.  While I did have paper losses on the value of my stocks, they were relatively minor and dividend income actually increased.  So I'd say my mix of investments are pretty well suited to handle an actual correction in the stock market if or when one should occur.

HOW MANY TIMES A YEAR DO YOU GET PAID?

I decided it was time to re-calculate the number of times per year I get paid.  With my latest stock purchases my dividend payments per year went up to 532!  I get paid from work 24 times per year (twice per month).  Then I collect interest payments 12 times per year on my bank accounts.  I also collect 24 payments per year from my little internet side gigs (Swagbucks and Bing).  So you add that all up and I'm collecting a whopping 592 payments per year!  

While I live on my income from work and it's still my largest source of income, dividend income increases every single month.  I may or may not get a raise from work this year, but I know I'll get at least 12 raises from my dividend stocks due to reinvested dividends.  All the negative Nancys always say, "Well eventually you'll have to start collecting the dividends in cash and it won't be going up anymore."  Yes that's partially true.  However, I have 4 separate investment accounts.  So I can draw the dividends in cash from one or two of those accounts and keep reinvesting and growing the income on the rest.  No matter how you look at it, getting paid 592 times per year is a very good thing!    

STOCK MARKET DROP NOT ALL BAD NEWS

Like the ice snow storm here in Missouri on Sunday, the past weeks' drop in the stock market kind of caught everyone off guard.  I have to admit, it surprised me as well.  However, instead of fretting over paper losses, I've been looking at the opportunity it presents.  As far as the economy, everything is still looking good going forward, so I'm looking at this as a chance to pick up more shares at much cheaper prices.  Lower stock prices mean it's now cheaper to buy a dollar's worth of dividends than when prices were up.  It allows me to increase dividend income much more rapidly than I had expected, since I'm not paying as much to purchase additional shares of stock.

On that note, just completed my purchase of QYLD in time to capture the dividend for February.  Also timed the sale of PFE so I could make a small profit and collect a final dividend from them later this month.  The monthly dividends I collect from QYLD will be about 3 times as much as I was receiving from ORA and PFE, plus it allows me to get involved in trading covered calls much sooner than I would have otherwise.  Although, they'll be doing the trading for me, it's the idea of creating an income stream from options trading that appeals to me.  I still plan on trading covered calls on my own as soon as the funds become available.

Don't have any idea how long this drop in the stock market will last, it seems to be at least partially fueled by limit orders kicking in and activating trades, driving prices down.  In any case, I'll be buying everything I can afford to boost my overall portfolio yield while the fire sale is on.

FEBRUARY KICKS OFF WITH 11 DIVIDEND PAYMENTS!

The month of February started off great with 11 dividend payments, including my first dividend from JPS!  Since stock prices are still down and most of my dividend payments were invested in more stock, I was able to pick up some shares for less.  Also have a couple stocks in my taxable account paying out cash, so the cash balance in my savings account jumped by 10%!  How's that for a great first day of the month?

Going forward, even though February is a short month, I'll collect a total of 41 dividends this month.  With 11 today, I'm looking forward to another 30 payments before the end of the month!  Should get all my tax documents in by the 15th so I'll be able to prepare my income taxes.  I'm going to invest my refund in shares of EVV for my IRA account.  Right now they're selling at a discount to net asset value and they're quite near their 52 week low.  With monthly dividends and over a 7% yield, I think it will be a good place to park my tax refund this year.