Investing Rules

[fenders53]

(12-13-2019, 11:03 AM)Otter Wrote: I've posted my buy criteria and other portfolio guidelines before, but will restate them here, as someone may browse them here first and find them useful (or not). For all my non-401k holdings, my criteria for buy and hold are:

1. Large or Midcap (size matters if you are looking for stability);
2. P/E or P/AFFO (REITs) 15 or Less (ideal), or below 10yr Average (ok - 10yrs will typically take into account an entire business cycle without data that's too old to be reliable);
3. Chowder Number of 8+ for Utilities/Telcos, and 12+ for all other stocks (a good yardstick for total return in the DGI investing space);
4. 25+ years of dividend growth (ideal), or 10+ (ok), subject to exceptions for quality blue chips like BA (has paused dividend growth, but not cut it);
5. Investment-Grade Credit Rating (BBB+ or better is what I prefer);
6. Dividend Payout Ratio <75% (I will bend this rule for special cases like tobacco companies, which typically have stable cash flows and expenditures); and
7. No obvious outward signs of systemic risk to the company/its business model.

There's always a bear market somewhere with stuff that is on sale. T in the $20s while the rest of the market was booming is a recent example. It's just that more stuff is on sale when the entire market nosedives like in 2008/2009. Those sort of massive draw-downs are exceedingly rare in the market, so my philosophy is you need to always be on the lookout for value. Were purchases I made in October 2018 available cheaper in December 2018? Probably. Do I regret those purchases in hindsight? No. I bought other stuff at great values in December, and enjoyed the brief market-wide sale to pick up some stocks on my list that had been flying high for a while.  

I don't always make a purchase that satisfies all of my criteria, but I do try to stick to them. Having them as a handy yardstick is helpful.

As for managing overall portfolio risk, I have rules of thumb for that, too. No holding should generate more than 5% of total dividend income, and holdings should be diversified across all GICS sectors. Satisfying that second rule of thumb took some time. Different sectors go on sale at different times for different reasons. Sometimes it seems like I will spend months buying the same stuff, until those sectors suddenly become favored again, leaving me with different options as other sectors/stocks fall out of favor. I'm buying CNP for the first time in several years, as it had been running hot. Someday stocks on my list like MCD and MSFT will revert to mean, and I can start a position with them, or keep adding to old favorites like ADP, which seems to be able to fly high for years on end.

My goal was to basically build my own personal index fund, which pays dividends, and which bears no fees. Happy with the results so far, and no plans to change course.

Good post.  That diversification to include all sectors really can take time if you follow valuation rules for entry or exit.  It's even trickier for me because I almost always enter selling puts.  I might sell multiple puts in the same sector one month.  I often end up buying nothing, but I could wake up with 500 new shares in one sector.  I'm mindful of how defensive a sector is in when I make decisions.  Short of a recession, it's going to take me years to diversify exactly as a desire.  It's sure less complicated when I am just nibbling shares.  Unfortunately I am addicted to the monthly income so it will take as long as it takes.