Tuesday, December 31, 2013

December Recap

2013 is now in the books.  Crazy year for investing!  Stocks went through the roof while gold and bonds were horrendous.  Luckily I'm not interested in gold and have kept my fixed income exposure low.  Precious metals do not pay passive income and therefore do not fit my strategy or goals.  In the future I will use bonds as a major passive income source but will have to wait for higher interest rates in order to justify holding them over dividend growth stocks. That time will come eventually.

Anyways I really enjoyed the holiday season.  This time last year I was stationed in South Korea and felt lonely and isolated being away from my loved ones.  I haven't been home for Christmas in 5 years you can imagine how joyous this holiday season was for us!

I am interested in investing and chronicle my adventures with it on this blog, but I hope everyone understands money is a small part of life.  I'm not pursuing financial independence to get rich so I can buy a bunch of crap to impress people.  It's about maximizing happiness and buying freedom.

DOW: 16,577 /// S&P 500: 1,848 /// 10-YR BOND: 3.03%

New Purchases:
1) 60 shares LEG at $29.23: $72.00 annual income
2) 25 shares CVX at $119.78: $100.00

Sales:
1) 54 shares ABBV at $52.25: ($86.40) annual income

Dividends Received: $546.65
ConocoPhillips (COP) $41.40
Intel (INTC) $20.70
iShares Emer Mkt Bnd (EMB) $2.43
Southern Co (SO) $32.48
Southside Bancshares (SBSI) $15.00
Chevron (CVX) $29.00
Emerson Electric (EMR) $23.65
Exxon Mobil (XOM) $10.71
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) $39.60
Lorillard (LO) $46.20
Norfolk Southern (NSC) $29.64
Target (TGT) $8.60
Avista (AVA) $47.89
Exchange Income Corp. (EIFZF) $16.89
Coca-Cola (KO) $40.60
Realty Income (O) $15.64
Realty Income Series F (O-PF) $6.76
McDonald's (MCD) $45.36
Linn Energy (LINE) $24.16
LTC Properties (LTC) $28.58
Owens & Minor (OMI) $21.36

Dividend Increases:
1) TD: $.85 to $.86 per quarter (Canadian). ~$1.48 annual income
2) WPC: $.86 to $.87 per quarter. $.92
3) T: $.45 to $.46 per quarter. $7.32
4) O: $0.1818542 to $0.1821667 per month. $.36

New Deposits:
$1,500 to taxable account, $25 to Lending Club

Lending Club Interest:
$8.75

Special Dividends:
1) SBSI: $7.14 I appreciate companies who want to give shareholders extra payments (especially right before Christmas!!) as it truly demonstrates shareholder loyalty.  Unfortunately I cannot include special dividends towards my monthly or quarterly progress because it's not income I can expect on a regular basis.  However SBSI has been paying them for over a decade, even during the great recession and tech bubble.

8 comments:

  1. Killer year for you CI! While browsing around Yahoo! Finance I saw that gold was -28% for the year. Ouch! I have a gold ring or two, but they're definitely not held for investment purposes. Glad you were able to be home for the holidays! I know it can wear on you when you're gone. Best of luck in 2014 and keep on striving for FI! One day it'll come for all of us and I can't wait to see who ends up hitting it first! My bet would be on FI Fighter because he's been killing it with the rental income.

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    1. Haha I won't be the first one to call it quits, that much is certain! Perhaps in 4-5 years I could settle for part time job in order to enjoy my passions. Or I could go for the full military pension and continue working a long time and be relatively rich in retirement. I'm leaning towards part time soldiering (reserves/national guard) and semi retirement in 4-5 years! There are so many options on the table, it's truly awesome!

      FI Fighter gets there first. Or All About Interest if he chooses to.

      Yes gold bugs & permanent portfolios were OBLITERATED this year... especially when you consider the opportunity costs of foregoing stocks. It's a shame, but on the other hand stocks will never maintain this pace for an extended period of time. Let's not get over confident... As for me I will always have my eye on the growing income stream, not my net worth. I could potentially have a banner year in a down stock market and it's not by accident either

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    2. Take the pension ASAP. That must be something about being in service thats great I am not totally sure but is it 40% of your annual pay that will be your pension after 20 years of service it used to be 50% I think years ago. I know unless the laws changed you must have 20 years of service to quality for it. I like the indexed to inflation aspect of the pension also if that is srill in affect im not totally sure.

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  2. That's a nice list of payers for December. Nice job! It's great you were able to come home for Christmas to see family.

    Gold and Silver were both hit hard. I don't own much gold but I do have a little bit of silver (about 8k worth). The majority of my extra money will be going right back into the stock market regardless of how high or low the DOW is.

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    1. Yeah pretty nice little month there, I'm pretty sure that total is an all time record for me. I plan to continue purchasing stocks on a monthly basis as well. Maybe we'll get a correction this year, never really happened in 2013.

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  3. CI,

    Another fantastic looking month. Great additions to your portfolio, and well over $500 in dividends. Not much to complain about!

    Glad you were able to spend the holidays with your family. I was in the same boat. I'm lucky in that I haven't yet missed Christmas with the family, but you never know what life can bring. I just try to enjoy the good times when they roll and make sure I'm doing all I can to maximize my chance at seeing more through trying to buy freedom.

    Keep up the great work!

    Best regards.

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    1. Thanks. I think Q1 2014 is going to be a beast of a quarter. Quite a few positions I bought in the past are going to start paying. Take care!

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  4. I like gold and invest in it although it doesn't pay interest. I believe we will see a big run up in gold and I was buying on these low levels. It is just a play for me.

    Your dividend income is great. I hope this year I will be able to boost my investments too to catch up with you :)

    Have a successful 2014 year!

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