Saturday, March 31, 2018

February 2018 Portfolio Summary

I have been procrastinating on my monthly portfolio updates.
Here is the supposed update for the end of February, but since it's the end of March now I will just summarize what is happening with my portfolio up until now, March 31 2018.

The S&P500 has been rough lately. It is no longer as sanguine as it used to be. Trade war terrors, Trump tweet targeting specific industries or companies, information security crisis at extremely large companies, and instability with the current administration has caused unease with the markets. However, I still feel very positive about the market because of the tax reductions to corporations and the general growth the economy is experiencing right now. I am a big believer in American business and have always felt the place to invest is always in the USA.

The dollar is also weakening considerably. This is a major tailwind for a large chunk of my portfolio as I hold many companies who operate internationally. A weak dollar will boost handsomely the money held overseas when converted into US Dollars.

Crude oil has been rising. I do not hold many companies directly affected by the price of oil. Rising oil costs will increase material costs for the companies I hold but I don't see it affecting them significantly. If anything, the low oil prices in the past has caused the overall market to tank because it was thought to be seen as a sign of low demand or low economic activity. Higher oil prices, although bad for most businesses, may be seen now as a boom because economic activity is high causing higher demand for oil. Anyways, rising oil prices will definitely help those downtrodden oil businesses. I find oil to be a "dying" business with a bad reputation. Oil is not the way of the future (many decades from now) and I want to invest in businesses that will continue being pretty much the same many decades from now (i.e. toilet paper will still be toilet paper and toothpaste will still be toothpaste 100 years from now).

Friday, March 9, 2018

February 2018 Dividends Received

Dividends in February 2018 are shown below.

The quarterly moving average of dividends per month is $876. Next month is March and I'm predicting around $1050 in dividends. And for April I am looking at $1200.

Ticker      Total    Taxable         401k
T $149.46 $149.46
PG $70.71 $60.21 $10.50
O $56.20 $56.20
CLX $40.77 $40.77
SBUX $37.87 $27.83 $10.04
APD $33.47 $33.47
GIS $31.91 $31.91
CL $25.07 $25.07
MA $19.87 $8.01 $11.86
ABT $16.89 $16.89
GD $13.44 $13.44
INTEREST $0.46 $0.01 $0.45
$496.12 $375.16 $120.96

The monthly moving average is in the graph below. The growth has flattened lately as contributions have slowed down.