April 2017 Portfolio Summary

I'll post data for the end of April by using data from May 12, since I was busy on a trip around the beginning of May.

A lot of things happened in April. As shown in the previous post, the dividends I received was a record high totaling $844 in April. The portfolio dollar growth has been steady for a while now but the annual dividends amount continues to climb ever higher.

The purpose of this portfolio is income accumulation. The portfolio on its own is outputting around 2.7% yield. So every $100 invested gives me $2.7 per year in cash. I use this money to either live off of or buy more investments.

Below is a treemap chart of my portfolio. I have placed very large bets on tobacco, Home Depot, JNJ, Realty Income, Becton Dickinson, Visa, and Pepsi. As you can see, most of my investments are in the Purple or Consumer Staples sector as they all pay very generous dividends and are one of the most predictable businesses around.

I have reduced my cash position for my housing down payment and allocated more funds to buy shares. I still do have around $40k or so in cash that I can buy if I need to, but I like to keep a decent cash position for emergency or opportunities.

I hold 40 stocks in my portfolio. This is a bit more than I like but all have passed my screening criterias and I will not hesitate to add more if any of their prices drop. I have been adding predominantly to positions I already hold, and have not added new positions. The latest new position was ITW which is a dividend aristocrat industrial.

Positions listed below with Green highlighting are my core positions. Yellow are supporting and red are speculative. Core positions are the ones I am most comfortable on holding. Companies with their names bolded indicate core positions that have the highest quality metrics determined by S&P and Value Line. Only a feel positions are bolded and also highlighted by me in Green as Core positions. I will likely hold these types of positions for life and add on every dip possible.

My favorite sector is the consumer staples. I tend to hold as many companies I can in sectors that have predictable cash flow. Companies that are boom bust like oil and raw materials are not my style. Nor are companies that constantly have to spend billions to innovate like Technology. I primarily hold boring companies people don't like to talk about as they are not "sexy". These include products like toothpaste, cereal, bottled water, shampoo, toilet paper, cigarettes, ketchup, soda, or electric utilities.

In terms of my progress, my goal to achieve $1,000,000 is on track. My net worth is now exceeding $350,000. 

The periods going forward will need to rely more on the portfolio supporting its own growth in order for me to meet my goal in the schedule shown below. In the early days, my portfolio growth was primarily due to my periodic contributions. However, I hope in the future my portfolio can grow faster on its own without my help.

Since price of shares is not predictable and prices are often at the whims of the irrational market, I prefer to look at how much passive income my assets are generating for me every year. Below is my plot of my forward annual income from my investments. The graph has climbed quite a bit upward in the last month as I have invested heavily in new shares. Each share I buy will pay me dividends. My portfolio is only composed of dividend paying stocks as I want to be paid in cash for every company I own.

Dividends are steady and predictable as long as the business fundamentals are intact. When share prices declined in 2008-2009, nearly all of the businesses I hold today either held or increased their dividends despite the economic recession. This is because these companies continued to make profits despite the recessionary environment. These are the types of companies I like to hold since I want my dividend to always be increased or at least be held flat year after year. I tend to value more on a company's ability to pay and maintain the dividend instead of focusing so much on the share price. I welcome a share price decline of 50% but will not tolerate a decline in the dividend.