What I Am Buying Today.

[vbin]

Added Swk, gpn, baba.

[MrFortune]

Added SMG, AVGO, SWK and SCHD

[divmenow]

Congrats to those who added AVGO today. Monster quarter and that cash flow is nice!!

I added this morning

[Dividendwayfarer]

Added AVGO, TSM, MSFT, V, MMM, QCOM, MRK, NKE today & yesterday. Sold another put on AMD today.

[EricL]

Sold out of my MMM due to lack of growth and concerns about litigation regarding its earplugs and chemicals division.

Opened a new position in LII and added to positions in EXR, TROW, and TSCO.

[MrFortune]

(09-02-2022, 09:48 AM)EricL Wrote: Sold out of my MMM due to lack of growth and concerns about litigation regarding its earplugs and chemicals division.

Opened a new position in LII and added to positions in EXR, TROW, and TSCO.

A little late selling MMM.  Should have sold a month ago 40 points higher 

I added TSCO as well today and a bit more VLO

[EricL]

(09-02-2022, 11:40 AM)MrFortune Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 09:48 AM)EricL Wrote: Sold out of my MMM due to lack of growth and concerns about litigation regarding its earplugs and chemicals division.

Opened a new position in LII and added to positions in EXR, TROW, and TSCO.

A little late selling MMM.  Should have sold a month ago 40 points higher 

I added TSCO as well today and a bit more VLO

Yeah, I agree.

Got tired of looking at it. =)

[vbin]

Sold out cah. Added PltR

[vbin]

(09-02-2022, 01:40 PM)EricL Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 11:40 AM)MrFortune Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 09:48 AM)EricL Wrote: Sold out of my MMM due to lack of growth and concerns about litigation regarding its earplugs and chemicals division.

Opened a new position in LII and added to positions in EXR, TROW, and TSCO.

A little late selling MMM.  Should have sold a month ago 40 points higher 

I added TSCO as well today and a bit more VLO

Yeah, I agree.

Got tired of looking at it. =)

I might start a position in mmm under $100. I don’t think anyone wants them to go bankrupt. They just want to milk.

[EricL]

(09-02-2022, 02:13 PM)vbin Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 01:40 PM)EricL Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 11:40 AM)MrFortune Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 09:48 AM)EricL Wrote: Sold out of my MMM due to lack of growth and concerns about litigation regarding its earplugs and chemicals division.

Opened a new position in LII and added to positions in EXR, TROW, and TSCO.

A little late selling MMM.  Should have sold a month ago 40 points higher 

I added TSCO as well today and a bit more VLO

Yeah, I agree.

Got tired of looking at it. =)

I might start a position in mmm under $100. I don’t think anyone wants them to go bankrupt. They just want to milk.

I don't think they'll go bankrupt, but I don't see where the growth is coming from either. The last 4 dividend increases have been 5.88%, 2.08%, 0.68%, and 0.68% and now they have litigation and are talking about spinning off businesses.

Having dealt with the GE drama years back, I decided to make things simple and just cut the cord.

[vbin]

(09-02-2022, 02:20 PM)EricL Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 02:13 PM)vbin Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 01:40 PM)EricL Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 11:40 AM)MrFortune Wrote:

(09-02-2022, 09:48 AM)EricL Wrote: Sold out of my MMM due to lack of growth and concerns about litigation regarding its earplugs and chemicals division.

Opened a new position in LII and added to positions in EXR, TROW, and TSCO.

A little late selling MMM.  Should have sold a month ago 40 points higher 

I added TSCO as well today and a bit more VLO

Yeah, I agree.

Got tired of looking at it. =)

I might start a position in mmm under $100. I don’t think anyone wants them to go bankrupt. They just want to milk.

I don't think they'll go bankrupt, but I don't see where the growth is coming from either. The last 4 dividend increases have been 5.88%, 2.08%, 0.68%, and 0.68% and now they have litigation and are talking about spinning off businesses.

Having dealt with the GE drama years back, I decided to make things simple and just cut the cord.

Not questioning your decisions and thank you for bringing growth and div increases in prospective even $100 seems a bit too much.

[crimsonghost747]

Regarding getting rid of MMM... well there is this saying: better late than never.

Litigations come and go, and can be very damaging in the short term but in the USA they are a part of being a big business. No way around it. So I wouldn't be too worried about that.

However, a few years ago (perhaps in 2019?) I did a pretty in-depth evaluation of MMM, and mainly compared it to HON which is the main industrial company in my portfolio.
Back then it was already starting to look like MMM was getting into trouble with their very slow growth numbers. If I recall correctly most of the EPS growth came from share repurchases, and overall it looked like a "slowly dying dinosaur" to me. Sure, the dividend yield was good. Sure, the dividend was sustainable. I believe my final conclusion was that it was an ok company with a great history, and it's not like I was against owning it, but why would I own it when there are so much better options out there?

I haven't followed it closely since then, so I'm definitely not up to date on the current hassle around it. But seems like those growth issues are still there, and if they have been this persistent for this long during this amount of ridiculous government stimulus (on a global level) then it's definitely not a good sign. So I think that those who own MMM should indeed consider that, while it's still probably an ok company to own, is it better than the other similar options?