Tuesday, July 31, 2012

July Recap

July was a pretty slow month for me investment wise.  The stock market posted gains and was pretty even keeled, nothing crazy.  I wish I bought more in June.  Oh well, it's too late now!  To keep my allocations in order, my next purchase will be fixed income.  10% of my retirement assets are earmarked for fixed income, most of it is held in my TSP (federal employee 401k).  I'm currently investigating individual preferred stocks, individual exchange traded debts, and emerging market debt etfs.  I'm looking at new issues since they seem to be closer to par value.

DOW: 13,073.01 /// S&P 500: 1,385.30 /// 10-Yr Bond: 1.5040%

New Purchases:
1) 56 shares Senior Housing Properties (SNH) providing $85.12 annual income.  I bought SNH at $22.32/share + commissions.
2) 44 shares Owens & Minor (OMI) providing $38.72 annual income.  OMI was purchased at $27.96/share + commissions.

Sales:
1) 33 shares LTC Properties (LTC) reducing my annual income by $57.42.  I reduced my stake in LTC at $37.37 per share.

Dividends Received:  $162.35
Coke (KO) - $19.89
H.J. Heinz (HNZ) - $12.36
Illinois Tool Works (ITW) - $10.44
Phillip Morris (PM) - $60.06
Exchange Income Corp (EIFZF) - $16.99
Realty Income Preferred F (O-PF) - $6.76
LTC Properties (LTC) - $24.38
Toronto-Dominion (TD) - $11.47


Dividend Increases:
None

New Deposits:
$1065 in July.  $300 added to ROTH IRA, $765 to taxable account.  I'm still working on a budget, waiting on a few items before I know what it will be.

Options/Bonus:
None

14 comments:

  1. It looks like you had a solid month -- keep up the good work! I know what you mean about things being kind of slow investment-wise. I've noticed that my investing activity has become less frequent in the past two months (just one purchase). Maybe Mr. Market will give us a repeat of last fall's sell-off -- it would be nice to see a lot more attractive buying opportunities.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct months are the lowest for dividend totals and this was the first month this year I haven't had a dividend increase. I was expecting BWP to do a minor increase. It stayed flat. I need to listen to the conference call to see whats going on. I thought NSC might have an outside chance do an increase in July, but they haven't released anything yet.

      Delete
    2. Hmmm, I just noticed that NSC has not announced its next quarterly dividend, even though the ex-dividend date is typically in the first week of August.

      Delete
    3. My previous post was a bit too early: NSC announced a 6.4% dividend increase today. :)

      Delete
    4. Haha. I just noticed the raise as well. They were a little late with the announcement this year. In the past it was declared 7/26/2011 and 7/27/2010. I'll happily take a dividend increase a few days late.

      Delete
  2. CI,

    Another solid month. Keep up the great work.

    I've also been a bit light on initiating new investments. I've had lighter months at work (due to a summer slowdown) and I've been less focused (somewhat intentionally) on budgeting, both leading to less available investment capital. Ultimately the journey is a marathon, not a sprint...and it's the journey, not the destination.

    Best wishes and hopefully you have another fantastic month in August!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nothing wrong with taking a little breather and having some fun. It has to be difficult to maintain a super high savings rate for long periods of time. I don't think I could do it. I actually enjoy my job and don't mind going to work so I'm not in a hurry to retire. Yesterday we were doing training wearing full chemical suits and gas masks in 90 degree heat with super high humidity for an hour straight. Not fun. My uniform was soaked and sweat poured out of my gloves when I finally took them off. It's times like that when I just want to scream!

      Delete
  3. Nice month, it looks like you have a lot more dividend payers in July than I do. Eventually I'd like to balance out the months better but I won't worry about it while I'm still building. I also ended up adding more OMI in July. I wanted to up my healthcare exposure.

    I really need to do more research into MLP's, REIT's, ETF's and Preferred's for income. I bought 100 shares of EXC and 100 shares of APL in the last couple of months to put into my income portfolio but I plan to keep this portfolio relatively small compared to my dividend growth portfolio.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 3 of my investments pay monthly (LTC, EIFZF.PK, O-PF), so it's a little bit deceiving. It would be nice to have evenly distributed monthly income. I've settled on comparing results quarter to quarter which allows me to buy what seem to be the best deals without trying to get the payouts synchronized.

      Wow 100 shares of AAPL is a pretty penny, glad you're doing well!

      Delete
    2. LOL I see typed APL, not AAPL. Big difference in the price.

      I include non dividend growth investments in my portfolio since the income they generate is just as good and just as real. I do seperate them on my portfolio page because the yields are fixed and I don't want them gumming up the YOC numbers.

      Delete
  4. Wow, over 1k in savings/deposits, pretty impressive. Is your Roth maxed out? If not, why would you put so much into taxable instead of the Roth? Hope Im not being too nosy, just curious what your rationale is for that...I do the same thing some months, my reasoning being that I still have half the year to finish maxing, and there is always a small, small chance I could somehow need the money.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No my ROTH is not maxed for 2012. Good question. I decided to selectively reinvest my dividends and not DRIP for the vast majority of cases. If I transfer 5K to the ROTH once a year I'm either forced to DRIP or would have to wait about 10 months for the dividends to reach $1250 to make a purchase.

      Instead I accumulate dividends along with regular deposits which allows me to make purchases more often and selectively reinvest. I can contribute $1500 more this year; $300/month.

      I prefer selectively reinvest because sometimes certain stocks like AT&T become over valued. I don't want to buy more shares with dividends in cases like that. I'm placing faith in myself to choose better valued stocks, or at least recognize when something is over valued.

      I'm human and not always right.

      My 2012 ROTH contributions will reach $5K in December.

      Delete
  5. Great progress this month! July was a real lean month for me, as only one stock I owned, KO paid out dividends. I know it doesn't really matter, but it feels nice getting paid distributions on a monthly basis. I feel like my account is in a drought, waiting until September for much needed water ;)

    You are now over the 100k mark in total portfolio value. Congrats!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HAHA! I like the drought comparison! Like you say, it really shouldn't matter. It's a psychological thing.

      Yeah I did reach the 100K mark, but it's just a number. I'm not counting it on to last forever because I'm right on the cusp. A few down days and its back to 5 figures. Seeing your account move up and down by $1000 a day is a good reminder to focus on the income generation.

      Delete