Recent buy: PM, KMB, GIS, PG, CLX, etc

I added quite a bit of stock today. Here are the purchases:

Honeywell and Microsoft are new positions. They will be increased over time as I like their businesses and I want more companies in industrials and technology sectors. They do yield lower so I wanted to focus on higher yielding purchases now as a lot of consumer staples are very cheap and yield over 3%.

Right now my cash position sits at around $16,000.

Total commissions paid below is 0 (note I get 100 free trades a month due to my account balance).

expand/collapse column header activity details	sortTrade Dateascending	sortSettlement Datedescending	sortDescriptionascending	sortTypeascending	sortSymbol/ CUSIPascending	sortQuantitydescending	sortPricedescending	sortAmountdescending
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy HONEYWELL INTL INC DEL		HON	8	$146.78	-$1,174.24
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy MICROSOFT CORP		MSFT	11	$92.19	-$1,014.09
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy COLGATE PALMOLIVE		CL	2	$66.36	-$132.72
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy CHURCH&DWIGHT CO INC		CHD	2	$45.90	-$91.80
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy CLOROX CO DEL COM		CLX	3	$116.10	-$348.30
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy PEPSICO INC		PEP	3	$100.98	-$302.94
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy COCA COLA COM		KO	3	$42.25	-$126.75
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy PROCTER & GAMBLE CO		PG	2	$72.32	-$144.64
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy KIMBERLY CLARK		KMB	3	$101.75	-$305.25
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy GENERAL MILLS		GIS	3	$44.05	-$132.15
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy PHILIP MORRIS INTL INC		PM	2	$81.66	-$163.32
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy TJX COS INC NEW		TJX	1	$83.39	-$83.39
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy 3M COMPANY		MMM	4	$198.42	-$793.68
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy ILLINOIS TOOL WORKS INC		ITW	2	$151.42	-$302.84
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy ALTRIA GROUP INC		MO	3	$55.50	-$166.50
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy WEC ENERGY GROUP INC SHS		WEC	4	$62.53	-$250.12
	04/25/2018	04/27/2018 Pending	Buy JOHNSON AND JOHNSON COM		JNJ	3	$126.21	-$378.62

Recent buy: PM, PG, KMB, MMM, etc

The consumer staples companies are getting extremely cheap. The yields are getting very attractive and many of these companies are very high quality. I have taken a sizable hit to my portfolio due to the drop in PM and MO and other consumer staples. However my income from these companies continues to grow. I think the selling is overdone as consumer staples today are now the "unpopular" group shunned in favor of technology and industrials. Today I added the following.

PM: $501

PG: $219

PEP: $204

JNJ: $381

MMM: $433

ITW: $157

CLX: $114

KMB: $196

Trades were executed for free.

I added small amounts. I want to add more to Altria (MO) but will wait until they announce earnings. I still have a lot of cash left (~$20,000) so I was planning to steadily add in over the next days / weeks. I have found it's best to do large additions slowly instead of all at once to avoid risk.

Recent buy: JNJ, MMM, APD, etc

I bought the following yesterday:

JNJ:  $1174
MMM: $2851
APD: $816
ABT: $533
CLX: $256
WEC: $313

I paid $8 total for trades for 3M, the others were free.
Right now my cash position is around $20,000. To see what my portfolio looks like now I updated my Portfolio page: http://www.youngdividend.com/p/portfolio_17.html

I plan to steadily move the cash in all at once as nowadays the market moves up and down quite heavily. It's good to catch some of the down days if possible.

March 2018 Dividends Received

It's that time of the month again. Time to count the dividend payments I received in the last month, March 2018.

I currently have two accounts. One is my brokerage account which I call taxable as the income is taxed. The 401k is my retirement brokerage account with my employer. The 401k dividends are not taxed which is great. I tend to hold not so tax friendly securities like REITs in my 401k.

Ticker	Total	Taxable	401k
JNJ	$163.32	$157.92	$5.40
HD	$130.67	$101.44	$29.23
NEE	$125.47	$95.31	$30.16
PEP	$109.72	$82.86	$26.86
D	$98.48	$54.01	$44.47
MMM	$78.46	$78.46
BDX	$58.38	$58.38
O	$56.45		$56.45
WEC	$49.25	$37.09	$12.16
V	$41.60	$29.96	$11.64
ROST	$41.01	$41.01
KHC	$40.53	$40.53
MCD	$32.90	$32.90
CHD	$32.71	$18.91	$13.80
TJX	$26.22	$26.22
SO	$0.58	$0.58
INTEREST	$0.54	$0.01	$0.53
	$1,086.29	$855.59	$230.70

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).

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.