Monday, December 2, 2013

Monthly Review: November 2013

November was busy as usual at work. The semester ends in about two weeks and I am looking forward to the break. On the investing front, I mentioned previously that by mid-month I completed the rollover and conversion of funds from two retirement plans with my former employer to my Roth IRA. This gave me a little over $25,000 in cash to invest, which I started to do during the month. In fact, it turned out to be one of the most active months in my investing history. Here is a review of what happened in November:

Dividends: I received a total of $240.96 in dividends from 9 stocks, as indicated on my Dividends page. This represents a 74.7% increase compared with the same month a year ago. My year-to-date dividend total is now $2,144.04, which is 30.0% higher than my year-end dividend total for 2012.

Dividend Increases: I was pleased to see dividend increases announced for the following stocks (click on each stock to see my post about the increase):
  • HRL: 17.6% increase, $12.00 more in annual dividend income
  • BDX: 10.1%, $5.00
Dividend increases occurred for 32 of the 33 stocks in my portfolio in 2013, with the single exception being INTC. The mean and median dividend increases were 11.7% and 10.1%, respectively, with a total of 18 double-digit percent increases.

Contributions: I contributed $2,275 in new capital for investment, which was deposited in my taxable account. My year-to-date contribution total is $17,490, which is an average of $1,590 per month. I excluded the rollover money from my contribution total to avoid distorting the results, but it is included when calculating my portfolio's annualized return.

Transactions: I made six(!) purchases during the month (click on the transactions to see my posts about them): I was pleased that I had opportunities to invest some of my rollover money right away. Many REITs are attractively valued at the moment, so I started a position in O and averaged down on my position in HCP. The energy sector also has some good investment opportunities, so I increased my positions in KMI and CVX. Finally, an earnings-related sell-off gave me a nice entry point for TGT. These purchases will increase my annual dividend income by a whopping $554.00. My forward 12-month dividend total is $3,503.

Portfolio: My portfolio (taxable account and Roth IRA together) consists of 33 stocks and has a market value of $129,209.60 (including cash), which is a 29.3% increase over last month's value. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the increase is attributable to the influx of rollover money. The combined value of my 403(b) and 401(a) retirement plans is $4,287.60, all of which is invested in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund.

Seeking Alpha: I did not publish any new articles on the investing website Seeking Alpha. However, I earned $12.19 from page views of previous articles in November, increasing my year-to-date total to $1,140.68.

Looking Ahead: December will be great for dividends, thanks to many stocks in my portfolio paying out in that month. It is possible that a dividend increase (effective in 2014) will be announced soon by T; beyond that, I am not expecting any other announcements until the new year. I will likely contribute some new capital to my taxable account, although given my above-average expenses in December, it might be less than $2,000 (but enough for one purchase). I still have plenty of rollover money left to invest, so I will likely put more of it to work. I continue to like the valuations of REITs; in the interests of diversification I am looking at companies that I do not currently own (specifically, ARCP and VTR). In other areas, I would not mind increasing my positions in CVX, MCD, PM, or TGT. The only potential new position in my sights is IBM. As always, I will post about any purchases soon after they happen.

25 comments:

  1. HI DGM, Always good to see the monthly review. Any thoughts on HCP? seemed it did drop today as well. Thx

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    1. Div Investor: Thanks for your comment. I continue to like HCP, which has become considerably undervalued, but I am hesitant to buy more shares because it's already a large position in my portfolio. However, I have set a target price where I would feel compelled to increase my position if the stock continues to decline.

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  2. Looks like a really active month for you. Its always fun getting to put capital to work. I'm probably going to average down my HCP position sometime soon. I can't wait for December with all of the dividends. Today was a great start for me as I had 5 positions pay out.

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    1. PIP: It was definitely a more active month than usual, but it is indeed fun to put capital to work and build up my dividend income stream. December will bring a nice haul of dividends and I am looking forward to 2014, where I'll see some great year-over-year increases due to my recent purchases.

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  3. Great Month!! I would recommend looking at DE for your Roth account. This is a forever and hold stock that is undervalue right now. good luck

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    1. FFd: Thanks! I have looked at DE from time to time, but for whatever reason I always latched onto other investing opportunities. It is a stock that I will continue to watch, though.

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  4. Heck of a month DGM! Fun following along as you made all of those investments, and of course the real payoff comes as all of those acquisitions begin to pay out in the near future.

    I like ARCP as a potential investment for you as additional triple-net lease diversification, as well as another monthly payer. They are a buy in my mind in the $12.80-13 range. With the recent dividend increase, and more on the way, it will be interesting to see if any sell-off bring the price back below $13.

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    1. w2r: Thank you! It will be fun to see the year-over-year dividend increases for my portfolio in 2014. I also like ARCP as a potential addition to my portfolio and I have the same buy point as you (below $13).

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  5. Great stuff, DGM. Lots of new purchases. Also, your forward dividend stream looks to be growing at a great rate.
    Congrats on all the passive income. Keep it up.

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  6. DGM,
    Gotta love the December dividends. You've obviously had a great year even coping with the new job. I like that you keep track of each increase in your portfolio, with INTC being the laggard. Wondering if that might cause you to sell it? I have not done any research on the stock recently.
    -RBD

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    1. RBD: Thank you! Regarding INTC, I'll continue to hold and watch what happens in the new year. The company's latest guidance was for flat revenues in 2014, which is disappointing, but over the next quarter or two we will get a sense of whether recent initiatives are paying off. INTC gets a lot of bull vs. bear coverage and I've learned to tune much of it out and await actual results.

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  7. That's a heck of a lot of transactions! I look forward to seeing where you deploy the rest of that rollover money. You've started a new and higher paying job and have more dividend income coming in than ever before that will just keep increasing. I think you've set yourself up for a great 2014.

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    1. AAI: Thanks -- the fact that I nearly matched your massive investment total for November surprised me. :)

      It's nice that my dividend income stream is getting a major boost heading into 2014. I'm going to have to revise my multi-year projection for my portfolio's dividend growth.

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  8. This is a great story, DGM!
    It's always fun to read what all happened in a month.
    A great summary!
    It is also written very clearly!

    Best regards!
    D-S

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    1. D-S: Thank you -- I'm glad you enjoyed the summary and I appreciate the feedback!

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  9. Looking great! Nice passive income, keep it up! :)

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  10. O is getting very interesting…but its not easy to buy here in Germany
    will you buy more KMI this year?

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    1. Martin: Stay tuned for an upcoming post tomorrow. :)

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    2. got 75 shares of O today..(my first REIT)

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    3. Nice buy! It will be great to see those monthly dividends roll in.

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  11. DGM,

    Love the activity. You're putting fresh capital to work in a big way, my friend.

    Your dividend total was also excellent. November was a particularly weak month for me, with only KMI pumping out serious cash for me. However, I remain quite content with passive income as it comes on. The snowball rolls on...

    Keep up the great work!

    Best wishes.

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    1. DM: Thank you, I appreciate the feedback. With all the rollover money I've invested recently, it looks like I'm going to see some very strong year-over-year increases in my monthly dividend totals in 2014. The Jan-Apr-Jul-Oct quarterly cycle remains weakest for me, but the monthly dividends from ARCP and O will help out.

      I look forward to seeing your investing progress, too. Both of our snowballs are rolling nicely into 2014!

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