I wanted to start off and comment about the general direction of the market in the last 2 months. The plot below shows the S&P500 index in the last 12 months. The S&P500, for new investors, represents the US's largest 500 companies and the performance of those 500 companies together can be tracked in this index. The index can be purchased with index funds such as SPX with usually very low expense ratios (ER = fees per year). For investors that don't want to spend time researching and picking individual stocks I recommend purchasing a low cost index over time and holding it.
The S&P500 has experienced its first correction in many months. There was a 10% drop from the end of January until the bottom in early February. I felt the market was getting too extended in January and this pull back is a nice welcome to bring valuations back down to more reasonable levels. When stock prices start to become parabolic, there is usually a correction. One can witness the parabolic movement from November until the peak in January.
I experienced around a $40,000 paper value decline in portfolio during this time. From January to February I continued to add small amounts to my portfolio to collect additional shares in high quality companies that have withdrew 10-20% in value. I did not make any large allocation changes in my portfolio. Nearly all the positions (note SO was exchanged in my portfolio for AT&T) continue to sit in my portfolio and dividends are collected. The purpose of this portfolio is income accumulation, not timing of the market or observation of how the dollar value of the portfolio compares with the index. The dollar value of my portfolio is only secondary, as those assets are only there to produce dividend income. The growth of the income is of high priority. Usually growth of dividends is followed by growth of share prices. Any increase in my portfolio's dollar value is icing on the cake; the priority is dividend growth which I track very closely on separate graphs. The safety of the dividend is of utmost importance and I see no fundamental differences among the companies I hold between the January peak and the bottom in February. I still remain positive in the long term prospect of America.