WHAT IS THE GAME PLAN AT CORNERSTONE FUNDS FOR CRF AND CLM?

Not sure what the directors of CRF and CLM are up to now.  Since I've held stakes in the funds, they have done rights offerings, increasing the number of shares outstanding.  Then they did reverse stock splits, reducing outstanding shares, which kind of made sense.  Now I see CRF is doing another rights offering and the share price has tanked.  Of course that's not hard to figure out, since they are issuing more shares again, so you'd expect the share price to drop.  I have to admit, I don't understand the logic behind it.  Yes they'll take in more money and possibly increase total equity, but with more shares outstanding who is really going to see any benefit?  I can't help but wonder if they have the shareholder's best interests at heart.  I'm thinking no.  Definitely won't be buying any more shares until I find out what's really going on here.

ROLLER COASTER WEEK FOR THE STOCK MARKET

It was a roller coaster week with the stock market.  First my accounts were down, then up, then way down and ended the week with a record combined balance for my retirement and taxable account!  Seems people were fretting over the Chinese market, the financial problems in Greece and worrying about what the Fed will do.  As long as there's not a total collapse of the world's financial system, dividend investors kind of have an edge during times like these.  Since they tend to concentrate on monthly cash flows from dividends (or at least I do anyway), then ups and downs in the market don't tend to cause as much anxiety.

Looking forward to collecting a nice dividend from ROYT on the 15th.  Otherwise, it's not much going on with my investments.  Been busy with work though.  It's vacation time for several of my co-workers, so I'll be picking up a lot of extra hours.  Looking forward to having more cash to invest and pay down bills.  Also have money coming in from selling my old laptop and some of my online earning schemes.  Looks like it's going to be a good month!

2015 HWBK DIVIDEND UP 20% OVER 2014!

HWBK's July dividend, including special stock dividend, is up 20% compared to July 2014!  I think this is amazing performance, considering I added no new cash to my stake.  I simply re-invested dividends and the bank did the rest.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Warren Buffet says a good investment is one that should grow without any further cash out of pocket.  The value of my Hawthorne Bank shares has gone up about 39% since my initial purchase and dividend income has increased 20% since last year.  I think this would qualify as a good investment.

I'll be holding my investment in Hawthorne for the long term.  Partly because I believe in their long term prospects, but also because it is a local company and I'm more familiar with their day to day operations than most of the other companies I'm invested in.  It always brightens my day to drive by one of their banks and realize that I own a small part of that business.

HWBK PAYS SPECIAL STOCK DIVIDEND!

Although not so surprised, I was very pleased to see Hawthorne Bank pay a special stock dividend to shareholders this month.  It wasn't surprising, since they've paid the special dividend every July since I've owned the stock.  I am a bit partial to HWBK, although not emotionally attached.  I bought my initial stake when share prices were down, following a bad earnings report.  Since they have a strong presence here in central Missouri, I was very familiar with the bank and their operations and saw an opportunity for gains from a turnaround.  I haven't been disappointed.  My stake in Hawthorne is up nearly 60% since my initial investment!

It's been a good week overall for my portfolio.  Even though some of my holdings were down, ended the week with a record high balance in my investment account.  Got a lot of great dividends in the past 7 days, which always renews my enthusiasm for dividend investing.  During the past 5 days I collected a whopping total of 15 dividend payments!  While the total dollar amount is still small, it is growing every single month.  Imagine if you could find a job where you didn't have to do a lot of work, you got paid 16 times a month and every payday you got a small raise.  Would you be excited about a job like that?  That's exactly why I'm excited about dividend investing.

Wishing Everyone a safe and Happy 4th of July Weekend!

JULY STARTS OFF WITH A BANG, 5 DIVIDENDS FOR THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH!

July started off with a bang, as I collected another 5 dividend payments for the first day of the month!  That makes 11 payments total in the last two days!  Who says dividend investing is boring.  I get pretty excited about it when I see the money rolling in.  

UVE is set to pay on the second, shares ended up 4.42% today.  Overall 75% of my current holdings ended higher for the day, so I'm pretty happy about that.  Total portfolio value is still down, mostly due to seasonal drop in price of UVE which is still my largest holding.  Don't intend to ever sell any shares of UVE as long as they're paying dividends.  It's been a great investment over the past 10 years.  I've bought low and sold high and collected a lot of dividends along the way.  I bought back in a little over 2 years ago, held until the price doubled, sold enough shares to pull all my out of pocket money out and kept the rest.  Since then I've reinvested dividends to build my stake back up, with no additional cash investment on my part.  Warren Buffet says a good investment should continue to grow without adding additional cash.  So I'm pretty sure UVE is one of the best investments I've ever made.

ROYT dropped in price today, but I'm looking forward to the increased payout this month.  Last month's increase was a nice surprise, but I never expected to see them increase the payout again, especially while the share price is so low.  I'm reinvesting it all and letting it ride.  I'm still convinced that I'll see some fantastic gains from ROYT as soon as the price of gas goes back up.  We all know that's just a matter of time.  I wouldn't be surprised if gas prices stayed low until after the presidential election in 2016, since historically gas prices always drop during the presidential campaigns.  The article I read about it theorized that the government manipulates the pricing so the incumbent party has a better chance of retaining the White House.  

THIS IS WHAT'S GREAT ABOUT DIVIDEND INVESTING

Just collected 6 dividend payments on the last day of June.  While I was pleased to see the increase in dividends from last month, what makes me even more excited is that tomorrow, on July 1st, I'll have a repeat of today with all of the first of the month dividends rolling in.  This is the greatest part of dividend investing.  The market is down, yet the money keeps pouring in.  Not only am I collecting more each month, as reinvested dividends increase monthly cash flows, but I'm also seeing my total stock holdings increase with every payment.  While your portfolio is small, the increases seem slow, but as your holdings increase, the money rolls in in ever increasing quantities.

I'm at the point now where I'm in the maintenance mode.  I don't expect to add any new stocks anytime soon, but I'm working on building positions in current holdings.  The only thing that would trigger a trade would be a dividend cut, then it's time to sell.  Otherwise it's just a matter of monitoring my investments.  I do plan to increase my portfolio to a total of 30 holdings after doing more research in dividend investing.  According to my research, a portfolio of 30 investments stands a greater chance of positive returns with less volatility than a smaller portfolio.  I don't feel particularly rushed to buy stakes in an additional 10 stocks.  I think at this point I should be very selective and search out quality stocks at good prices to add to my holdings.  I'll be looking for the best deals with the most profit potential.  When I do decide to buy new stocks, they will most likely all be from the list of Dividend Aristocrats.