Sorry I didn’t post over the weekend. Went backpacking up in New Hampshire, where it dropped down to 32 degrees with a 15 mph wind blowing. Made the hike a little more “exciting” than I wanted.
As noted back in April, I altered my Dividend/Income account to reduce the bond allocation to 0, and increased the dividend stocks and REITS to a 50/50 split. The idea was to increase my dividend yield, as bonds had been performing poorly for the 3+ years that I had been using them. With Interest rates the way they appear to be, I don’t see bonds performing that well in the near future.
The first quarter was somewhat successful (an 18.7% increase in dividend $) but a real bust as far as value (I dropped almost 30% in value) due to the market volatility. Yield was up to 6.13%, but this was primarily due to a drop in the underlying value of the investments. For the second quarter, the investments recovered somewhat, and my yield dropped won to 4.67%. The actual $ amount of dividends for 2020 vs. 2019 was just about even.
For the third quarter, the value of the underlying investments has gone up about 2% (still not where they were at the beginning of the year) and the dividend payments are only 3% higher than the same period last year. A slight improvement.
| stock | Details | Investment value | Yield | Dividend |
| CAT | Caterpillar | $7,457.50 | 2.76% | $51.50 |
| CVX | Chevron | $3,600.00 | 7.17% | $64.50 |
| CSCO | Cisco Systems | $5,908.50 | 3.66% | $54.00 |
| DOW | Dow | $4,705.00 | 5.95% | $70.00 |
| XOM | Exxon Mobil | $3,433.00 | 10.14% | $87.00 |
| HR | Healthcare Realty | $15,060.00 | 3.98% | $150.00 |
| IBM | International Business Machines | $6,084.00 | 5.36% | $81.50 |
| PFF | iShares | $12,029.00 | 5.39% | $162.04 |
| PFE | Pfizer | $5,505.00 | 4.14% | $57.00 |
| O | Realty Income Corp (REIT) | $12,150.00 | 4.61% | $140.10 |
| SVC | Services PPTYS TR | $4,770.00 | 0.50% | $6.00 |
| MMM | 3M Company | $6,407.00 | 3.67% | $58.80 |
| UMH | UMH Properties | $14,894.00 | 5.32% | $198.00 |
| VZ | Verizon | $5,949.00 | 4.14% | $61.50 |
| WBA | Walgreens | $3,592.00 | 5.21% | $46.75 |
| $111,544.00 | 4.62% | $1,288.69 |
Again, if I was using the account to live off the dividends, I could “let it ride” and let the investments build back up, while spending the dividends. I believe the “jury is still out” on whether the shift to stocks & REITS was a good decision or not. With the current US Fed and its interest rates, I don’t think Bonds will be a good return any time soon – unless you are willing to go into some very risky bonds. If I had additional capital, I might invest more here, as I think these dividend stocks are undervalued.
Let’s see how the 4th quarter goes.
Mr. 39 Months