NEW MONTH, NEW LOWS FOR THE STOCK MARKET

The month of October started out on the downside for the stock market Monday and given the performance in the Asian markets overnight, I think we'll see more of the same today.  My accounts started the month off with a nice dividend payment from Reynolds American (RAI:NYSE).  Their current dividend yield is 5.67% with an annualized dividend of $2.12 per share.  RAI is one of my long term investments.

Looking ahead for the market, I'm expecting October to be much like the month of September with continued weakness in share prices.  I'll be busy adding to some of my current positions while prices are down.  I expect to continue buying through at least the end of this year.  I think stock prices are cheap and it's a good opportunity to beef up some of my long term investments, so I'm not as active in searching for new investments.

SPEAKING OF PROCESSES

Yesterday I wrote about wealth building being a simple process. The process I've chosen for building wealth involves investing in dividend paying stocks. In previous posts I wrote about my investment plan for 2010 and how I'd changed my strategy to increase cash and reduce investment costs. It seems to be working out well so far. I directed my online broker to reinvest dividends on some of my core stocks like Clorox, British Petroleum, Merck and a few others. This has helped reduce my costs, since there are no commissions on reinvested dividends, while allowing me to increase my holdings. I've also continued to invest monthly in my IRA account to help reduce taxable income and continued increasing my investments in limited partnerships, which are also tax advantaged, in my regular investment accounts.

My cash levels continue to increase from dividend income building up in my money market accounts. I also received a nice raise at work and will be adding extra cash to my savings and checking accounts as well.

So overall my investment plan for 2010 is working out quite well so far. I'll make adjustments along the way, but the basic plan is in place and it looks as though I'll be able to reach most of my goals for the year, even if there are some setbacks along the way.