Something New
Taking on new projects with you
The first month of this challenge is now over. Looking at the numbers, I’m happy to say I was able to add $762.81 to my investment account. This is $37.81 more than what the challenge was going to have me saving showing me that I will be able to far beyond surpass this challenge.
For week six I had $150 to buy stocks.
At the moment, I didn’t really see anything new that I wanted to add to my account. So, I just looked at the positions that I already had to see what would be worth adding this week.
The way that I was looking at it was that I wanted to have a well-rounded stock buy this week. I wanted to make sure that I was going to be about to get a stock in each category that I’ve been working for this past month.
That meant I need to add a stock in:
- Healthcare
- Information Technology
- Focused annual dividend stock
- Industrials
- Monthly payers
The stocks below are what I went with:
- Gladstone Investment Corp (monthly payer pick)
- Pfizer Inc (health care)
- Steelcase Inc (industrials)
- Intel Corp (information technology)
- AT&T Inc (focused annual dividend stock)
Final Thoughts:
On weeks that I don’t have anything new I’d like to add, I want to focus on making sure that I am well-rounded in my allocation.
There are still going to be parts of my portfolio that are going to stay the same no matter what. Similarly, AT&T is still going to be a stock I will add to every week, maybe even multiple shares at a time.
Any stock paying out monthly is something I’m also thinking about adding whenever I have left over cash for the very fact, I will be able to get the effects of compounding on these stocks faster vs stock that will pay out quarterly.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
My 10k Saving Challenge, has me saving $300 in week five, in which I am investing the biggest amount of money so far. My mindset this week was as followed:
- I could buy or increase my positions in cheaper stocks so I could get more volume from this $300 or,
- I could add more pricey stocks that in previous weeks would have been out of budget.
In the end I did a little bit of both.
This is what I acquired.
International Business Machine Corp. (NYSE: IBM) is a large cap value stock in the information technology sector that focus on IT services. The company operates through five segments: Cloud and Cognitive Software, Global Business Services, Global Technology Services, and Systems and Global Financing.
This may sound a bit foreign, but it all boils down to the idea that IBM is making sure their company will be able to fit into any environment, whether they need to take care of someone’s data or helping push artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for clients, they will be able to assist them. I added this stock because they filled my need for my information technology sector and they were also able to beat earnings from the Q4 with $2.07. The consensus was $1.79 by 12 analysts. This was a difference of 13.43% which shows that even during hard times this company is still able to perform.
Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) is also a large cap value stock in the information technology sector but with a focus on semiconductors and semiconductor equipment. Its segments are Client Computing Group (CCG), Data Center Group (DCG), Internet of Things Group (IOTG), Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG), Mobileye, and Programmable Solutions Group (PSG).
Intel Corp. was another stock I added to my information technology sector but this time with a different focus; semiconductors and their equipment. This provided me a chance not only to add to that sector but be exposed to a different area of that sector as well. Intel has found itself into everything in the market. They make CPU, flash memory, graphics chips, and network interface controllers, giving them a lot of market space. Intel added Mobileye to their portfolio which is working on automated driving car which is something that the market is going to want if Tesla is any indicator of the future of cars. Q4 earnings were $1.52 with a consensus of $1.10 means they had a difference of 27.50% which gave me confidence they will continue to perform over time increasing their share price along with their dividend.
Realty Income Corp (NYSE: O) is a mid-cap blend stock that is an equity real estate investment trust (REITs). As of December 31, 2016, the company owned a diversified portfolio of 4,944 properties located in 49 states and Puerto Rico, with over 83.0 million square feet of leasable space leased to 248 different commercial tenants doing business in 47 separate industries. 4,920, or 99.5%, were single-tenant properties, and the remaining were multi-tenant properties. Out of these 4,920 single-tenant properties, 4,836 were leased with a weighted average remaining lease term of approximately 9.8 years.
Last week I added two REITs to my account: Agnc Investment Corp. (NASDAQ: AGNC) and Gladstone Commerical Corp. (NASDAQ: GOOD). AGNC has a focus on residential mortgage-backed securities on a leveraged basis. GOODs focus is in acquiring, owning, and managing primarily office and industrial properties while also making long-term industrial and commercial mortgage loans. The two areas of REITs now have coverage because of these purchases. I added Realty Income Corp. because its focus is on long term single-tenant properties, which was an area that I did not yet have in my REITs sector.
Steelcase Inc. (SYSE: SCS) is a small cap value in the industrial sector focusing on commercial services and supplies. They provide an integrated portfolio of furniture settings, user-centered technologies, and interior architectural products. Their furniture portfolio includes products such as storage, tables, and ergonomic work tools. Included in their seating products are task chairs, which are ergonomic seating that can be used in collaborative or casual settings, and specialty seating for specific vertical markets, such as healthcare and education. They offer services, which include workplace strategy consulting, lease origination services, furniture and asset management and hosted spaces.
I saw that I needed industrials in my portfolio not knowing where to go so I felt commercial services & supplies seemed like a safe bet. What really made me look at this stock was the integrated portfolio and the seating products because they were specific in areas such as healthcare, making me think that they will be needed for a long time. I also found that they crushed their latest earning by 62.50%, their earnings were $.08 and the consensus was $.03.
Final Thoughts:
I wanted to add at least one stock that previously would have not be attainable because my weekly amounts didn’t give me the chance to. I’m still pushing to get my portfolio more balanced so I’m not leaning too heavily in one sector. I feel that what I added this week (IBM, INTC, O, SCS) helped me rebalance it out, however much more still needs to be done. GAIN and GOOD are going to help increase my monthly income followed by T which is going to help with my overall annual income.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
In week two of this 10K Saving Challenge, I am saving $150.
This week I have a bit more money to play with, giving me a chance to see which new stocks I can add to my portfolio. I was looking at my allocation in different sectors for my portfolio and found that I need to increase my utilities and information technology sectors in order to make it more diverse.
I wanted to be certain that I was picking stocks that would pay dividends. After some time, I came to two stocks, Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP (NYSE: BIP). These two stocks were able to fill my needs for those two sectors and I was able to use the rest of the money to buy more AT&T (NYSE: T) before that Ex-dividend date hit.
Looking back on this week’s buy maybe I should have used all $150 on AT&T so I really could have taken advantage of that closing date. Unfortunately, not going this route means that I will be three shares short. That equates to $6.24+ (because of the use of DRIP). that I will not receive at the end of the year.
I am sticking with a different plan of growing my portfolio by buying different stocks at a time to keep my diversification up while also increase stock holdings with a high dividend yield based on a lower stock price. (I.e., AT&T which has a 6.97% with a stock price of $29.99)
There will always be better choices that I can make, but bear with me I am still learning. Over time I hope to make less and less of these poor financial decisions.
Final Thoughts:
Main points that I am taking out of this week will be I was able to get two more shares of AT&T before the ex-dividend date so I could get the dividend from those shares for the first quarter.
Cisco Systems, Inc. didn’t bring me a dividend for this quarter because I missed the ex-dividend date that was on 1/04/21 but I was able to add it to my information technology sector.
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. based on the distribution’s history for the past few years, looks that the next ex-dividend date will fall on 2/26/21. If they keep with the same dividend payout it will be $0.485. Having this stock will add a utilities sector to my portfolio, thus increasing my diversification.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
It would be an understatement to say that 2020 was bad year. With many people losing their jobs and so many getting sick and dying from the COVID-19 virus there was really not much that could be done but wait and see as the world fall all around us.
To make up for setbacks that I had experienced in 2020 I felt that I needed to make a road map to not only show me where I need to drive from but also, to see where my rest stops will be and where the destinations will end until a new trip begins.
This whole plan came from the idea of saving more money so that I will be able to weather hard times.
I found a 10K saving goal/challenge that has different saving amounts once a week for 52 weeks. After some time, a lightbulb went off and I thought why don’t I use the money that I’m saving to invest? After that another lightbulb went off and I thought why don’t I write about each investment I make?
I learned that to keep goals its best to tie them to bigger/grander goals that way you are just focusing on the bigger goal not the smaller ones which will make those first step goals as I like to call them easier to reach.
This is how that looks:
- 10k saving goal – to keep myself saving I will:
2. invest my money in my dividend account – this will increase my position causing an increasing in my dividend payout
3. Use my investments as writing topics for my blog posts – 52+ post over a year
The thought process behind this is each set leads to the next and you keep going forward relying on what you have done and continue to do from your past.
To grow that map even further I have tied those ideas and goals into a bigger plan.
- 52+ post over a year
2. Increase follower and views to my blog site
3. Start/Increase my ads revenue
4. Use my new ads income to invest back into account
5. Use my new ads income to invest back into account
6. Use these new investments as a new blog topic (i.e., stock buys with ads revenue)
If I keep up each week with my goals, I will have 52 blog posts. Which I’m hoping will increase my blogs traffic to the point where I make some income from it. I will be using this income for another stock buy, which will allow me to have another topic to write more posts. These new posts will help bring more traffic to my blog and give each post more views which should add to an increase in income. This is where the map starts to move into a circle whereas to continue to move forward you have to repeat the frame work that you have already laid for yourself.
After some work I hope to reach my main goal allowing me to quit the job I currently have and use this blog and my stock account to provide me with the income that I need to lead the life that I want to live.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
This is update number two on my dividend account. This year, as many of you know was not an easy time to do anything for anyone. With the idea of income being lost from losing a job or a drop in business, I felt that I was unable to add as much as I wanted to this account.
However, I did increase my account size. I was able to go from 12 stock holding to 23 holding (at the time of writing this post Cinemark and Disney have stop paying a dividend). It’s still a young account but I’m thrilled to say that I’ve made $39.25 YTD, meaning I have grown my dividend income from $7.66 at the end of June to $39.25 at the end of December showing a difference of $31.59. Taken at face value, this number over the course of a year is like going out to eat once, maybe twice.
Looking at the long-term view, I have been given $39.25 from these companies just for holding their stock. I’ll take that payout over the interest that saving accounts are giving these days! Once you work out the math it comes out to around .02% of total portfolio value ($2144.42/$39.25 = .019). Regardless, that coupled with the market gains of all my shares makes for a total gain to be $582.80, giving a huge 37.32% increase on my account at the time of this post.
I’m still not taking any of my dividend income as personal income, instead I’m reinvesting it back into those stocks using DRIP. I have another post detailing more about DRIP called “What is DRIP? Dividend Reinvestment Plan.”
Concluding Thoughts:
In my last post “Dividend Income for Q1 and Q2 2020”, I said I wanted to put $500 per month into the account, but since I was unable to do that with the uncertainty of my job, I felt the need to hold on to cash more than to invest it. My 2021 is going to be different, I found a 10K saving challenge and the money that I will be saving is what I will be using to buy stocks each week.
Each week will be a different amount so the stocks that I buy/increase my positions on will be changing weekly, as well.
Check out more about the 10K challenge that I’ll be doing in this post, “2021 road map”. It will go into detail about what I’m planning for this coming year and this blog.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
An investor will see a bear market in one of two way.
- They will fear for the total value of their portfolio going down
- They will get excited for the chance to be able to buy stocks at a discount
A bear market is defined as, when a securities price falls 20% or more from recent highs, it also has to have widespread pessimism and negative investor support.
They may or may not be accompanied by an economic downturn, usually a recession.
The most recent bear market we had experienced was during the 2020 stock market crash caused by the coronavirus which began on February 20th and ended on April 7th. This was only a few months but it was enough to cause a drop of around 37% in the Dow Jones industrial average from the highs of 29,551.42 to the lows of 18,591.93.
Looking at the market now you wouldn’t think that in less than a year we would have recovered not just the losses from the crash but actually surpass the highs. (As of 2/2/21 the Dow Jones is 30,687.48)
There are going to be some investors that see a bear market as the worst of times. This is because when the index starts to fall 20%+ they see all their hard-earned money being taken away. They may try to get ahead of their losses and start to sell because if you sell your stocks you are no longer in a bear market.
Believe it or not, this only makes a bear market worse for the reason that it is causing negative investor support. As more and more investors add to this negative support it pushes the market’s lows even lower.
The other half of the investors will hold out or they may sell some of their holdings because they wanted to take profit off the table, but they also use that same money to rebuy stocks at a new discounted price. If the company is strong with good business sense and it’s just the market around it pushing the price down than why not just buy at a discount? What this does is it allows you to be able to ride the wave all the way back up and sometimes even further.
These people are the ones with the mindset geared towards wealth is not just made when times are good, wealth is also made when times are taught because that’s when the opportunities emerge. If you are willing to take the risk on these opportunities the return may surpass your own hopes.
A bear market isn’t anything to take lightly it usually mean the world or the U.S. is experiencing bad times. The light that comes from such a dark cloud is that opportunities will start to pop out, and if you miss these opportunities you may never have another chance. (I’m not a finance adviser, this is for education propose only. Please make decisions bases on your own financial situation).
Bear market final thoughts:
As an investor you do have to be cautious during a bear market but that doesn’t mean that you have to put up with losing money, with the right knowhow and taking the right opportunities you could be coming out a winner when everyone else is losing all around you.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
In week four of this 10k Saving Challenge, I am saving $150.
This week I’m back up to $150 giving me a good amount of money to invest with. Upon inventory of my portfolio, I noticed I didn’t have many stocks that paid me monthly. At current, I only have Main Street Capital Corp (NYSE: MAIN). It’s a small cap value stock in the capital market, yet pays a high dividend yield and the best part is that it pays out every month.
After some time researching around, I was able to come across other monthly stocks that I will be able to add to my portfolio to not only boost my overall yield on my account, but as well as the frequency of my payments.
Agnc Investment Corp (NASDAQ: AGNC) is a mid-cap value stock that is a REIT (Mortgage Real Estate Investment Trusts) with a high dividend yield of 9.12% that is paid monthly. I felt that it was something worth trying in my portfolio, making this the first REIT I have in my portfolio, as well. (By the way, there will be a blog coming out talking about REIT soon)
Gladstone Investment Corp (NASDAQ: GAIN) is a small cap value stock in the capital markets. Similar to my Main Street Capital Corp stock, the dividend yield is a 7.83% this stock. It has investments in sectors, such as chemicals, plastics, rubber, home and office furnishings, house wares, and durable consumer products, among others. Giving their holdings a stable outlook.
Gladstone Commerical Corp (NASDAQ: GOOD) is a small cap value stock that is a REIT (Mortgage Real Estate Investment Trusts) with a dividend yield of 8.08%. Its real estate portfolio consists of approximately 122 properties located in 28 states, totaling approximately 14.9 million square feet. They have tenants from various industries, such as telecommunications, healthcare, automobile, diversified/conglomerate services, diversified/conglomerate manufacturing, plastics and rubber, containers, and personal and non-durable consumer products. This portfolio is diversified across so many industries giving them a better chance hold out if things were to go south.
Pembina Pipeline Corp (NYSE: PBA) is a large cap value stock based in Canada that falls into the energy sector of oil, gas, and consumable fuels. However, this stock has a lower dividend yield of 6.98% but is structured into three divisions: pipelines division, facilities division, and marketing and new ventures division. The diversification allows it a better chance to weather hard times which it has been doing during this Covid-19 pandemic.
Altria Group Inc (NYSE: MO) is a large cap value stock in the consumer staples of tobacco; the dividend yield is 8.34%. This stock isn’t one that pays monthly, on the other hand it is a strong buy stock that I have a long-term price target on. Tobacco sales have been going down over the years but Altria Group also has investments in vaping and a 47% holding in cannabis with Cronos Group Inc (NASDAQ: CRON) along with a 10% holding of Anheuser Busch Inbev NV (NYSE: BUD), giving this company different outlets to make revenue ensuring that the company keeps growing year after year.
I also added a share of AT&T (NYSE: T) just to increase my position in the holdings. My Goal for AT&T is that it will be my greatest contributor to my annual income. From the income estimator that I have been working with, this stock will be paying a high dollar amount from a relatively low investment.
Final Thought:
This week I bought a good number of stocks because most of them were fairly low in price giving me a chance to increase my overall average dividend yield. Now, I will be receiving payments every month granted the art of compounding will be able to take effect faster compared to my other holdings.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
In week three of the 10K Saving Challenge, I am saving $75.
Seventy-five dollars is significantly less than last weeks $150, but I was still going to try to make the most out of it. In checking my sector allocation, I found that my health care sector was low, so I started looking at Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE). Being that it is in pharmaceuticals and with the COVID-19 vaccine going around, I felt that it would be one worth picking up. Their ex-dividend date is coming up on 1/28/2021, meaning I will be able to receive the dividend that will be paid out on 3/05/2021.
I noticed my information technology allocation was also very low and as a result, I decided to add another share of Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO). Even though I missed the ex-dividend date for this stock, I still added to my position because I want to increase my information technology sector. The price it was selling at presented me the opportunity to buy it without going too much over my cut off point for this week’s goal.
Final Thoughts:
Pfizer has been a stock that I have seen in a lot of people’s portfolios and with good reason, because Pfizer has a strong pipeline with their oncology and cardiovascular drugs. They also have hospital business unit; Upjohn, which includes the company’s solid oral dose brands along with an over-the-counter medicine business. These three links have given this company a good coverage in their sector.
I feel Pfizer had a good long-term outlook allowing not just capital gains but also receiving a solid 4.25% dividend yield. From the research I was able to find on them, they have a track record of one year of consecutive dividend growth and has been paying dividends since 1980
Then, we have Cisco System Inc. engaged in designing and selling a range of technologies across networking, security, collaboration, applications, and the cloud. Recent research has found Cisco to be a very attractive buy. In the past 60 days, the stock has increased by 8.9% and Cisco was able to beat Q1 earnings. Seventy cents per share that was expected by analysts and they were able to hit .76 cents per shares which is a +7.37% difference from the expectation.
Cisco may not have grown like many other stocks that are in the cloud and technology sector, but I feel that they will be able to stay a strong competitor over time. They may not have a long history of dividend payments but they have been paying dividends since 2011 and have paid every quarter while also increasing their payout.
Every week I hope to give more information as to why I am making these picks to hopefully give the reader better insight to the world of investing and what to look out for.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
What is inflation? Inflation is the decline of buying power of any given currency over time.
Remember that candy that you used to get for .50 cents when you were a kid? Well, remember that same candy now, only smaller and costing $1.00. That is inflation!
The optimal inflation rate is considered to be around 2%, but a lot of countries try to target +/-1 of that 2%.
The main point is that if the country is doing well, inflation will continue making your money worth less and less each and every year.
Where you put your money will either help or hinder you from beating this inflation.
If you are the person who puts their money under the bed because you don’t trust the banks, well, unfortunately your money is only becoming worthless over time. It might just act like a fire starter if something bad were to happen.
Then, we have savings accounts, generally used for long term storage. The best rate I was able to find at the time of this post was Synchrony Bank with a high yield savings of .60% APY. That’s way under the 2%, there’s no way your money will beating inflation sitting in a savings account.
Another form is CD (certificate of deposit). The best rate I was able to find was from First National Bank of America at their best rate of 1.10% for an 84month (7 year). That rate isn’t beating inflation in any way and on top of that you’ll have to tie up your money for a really long time.
Now, stock market/dividend accounts provide the best return on your money, but they are not considered a “savings account” because your money has a chance of being lost. If you do put your money in the right stocks (dividend stocks), not only will you see market gains but income gains that both beat out inflation. The tax rate on this income is also lower because the interest from savings accounts is taxed higher. (I will be talking more about this is a upcoming post) The money may not be as easily available but you can pull it out if necessary.
Where you put your money is up to the saver because each type of savings account can be used for different things. I believe high yield savings accounts are a good place to put emergency funds because you can get access to funds fairly easily if something unforeseen were to occur. CDs, I can see being used if you need to put money for a purchase that you want to make later on down the road due to the fact that you can’t touch the money until the maturity date.
Personally, for me dividend accounts are the best financial strategies you can use to overcome inflation, being that lots of very strong stocks pay out dividends that have yields that are over 2%, so the income that you are acquiring is greater than what you would be losing out to inflation. Giving you a net positive income.
In the end we need to make sure that we make the most out of the money that we have not just for today but for the days to come.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
In this 10K Saving Challenge week, one has me saving $50.
Looking at the stocks I own it was hard to pick which stock I wanted to put those $50 into. I was also playing with the idea of adding new stocks to my account. After some time, looking at stock profile after stock profile, I felt it was best for me to increase my position in AT&T (NYSE:T).
There were a lot of strong dividend stocks that I would have liked to have purchased but looking at the price of most of those stocks, $50 was not going to get me much.
I went back to my position list and found I could get two AT&T shares with only going over my $50 goal by just under $10. I don’t mind spending a little more each time I buy shares because at the end of the day that is just more money I’m putting away for my future. However, I’m also not going to go way overboard, but under $10 is fine with me.
I spent $58.60 on my two shares of AT&T which works out to be $29.30 per share.
One of the deciding factors behind AT&T was that their EX-dividend date is on 1/08/21. Any shares that I acquired before that date allow me to receive the dividend payout for that quarter regardless of how long I owned the share. With the dividend pay per share being $.52 at the time of this post, I will get $1.04 paid to me in February instead of waiting until May when their next dividend payment is set.
Final Thoughts:
I was limited on what I was able to do this week with the amount being so small. The coming weeks in my 10k Saving Challenge will have greater amount that will allow me to be able acquire a greater number of shares.
The plan will be to increase my position in my portfolio and also acquire new stocks that will help me reach my target allocation for a more diverse portfolio.
As always, have a great day and keep learning and moving towards your goals, never stop pushing!
Something New 