Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
2015 Status
#1
I hope everyone had a successful 2015.

As for myself the Market Value of my holdings dropped over $100,000!

It was not that long ago I would be in a panic trying to figure what I did wrong and worrying if I'd ever recover the money lost.  Well now I recognize it's really a paper loss and not a benchmark I look at.

What really happen to my portfolio is that my dividend income for 2015 increased 10.94% from 2014.  I now have $9,261.20 more income than before.  The increase is from re-invested dividends and dividend increases. 

That's what this forum is about, generating a growing income from your investment,
Reply
#2
Nice post, cannew -- that's how to look at it for sure!

My dividend income was 22 percent higher in 2015 than 2014, but that is not quite apples to apples, since it includes the deployment of a bunch of new money that had been on the sidelines.

Still, moving in the right direction!
Reply
#3
Onward + upward friends!

Reply
#4
(01-01-2016, 05:07 PM)Kerim Wrote: Nice post, cannew -- that's how to look at it for sure!

My dividend income was 22 percent higher in 2015 than 2014, but that is not quite apples to apples, since it includes the deployment of a bunch of new money that had been on the sidelines.

Still, moving in the right direction!

No need to compare apples to apples, I'm fine with comparing income to income. Wink

Dividends increased 14.5% for me but a lot of that is also due to new capital being thrown into the mix.
That being said, I missed my dividend goal by about 1%. So not a huge miss but it would always be nice to hit the objectives that I've set out for myself. Looks like this year I would need growth of almost 18% to hit my goal for 2016... it's doable but obviously requires that added capital.
Reply
#5
I'm down across the board; however, that was because I'm fairly new moving towards DGI from mutual funds. For quite some time it irritated me how capital gains/dividends fluctuated from mutual fund investments, when the market was great the payouts were great and when the markets were giving investors the bum rush, well, do I need to say more about mutual funds? I'm not indicating that mutual funds are bad investments but I do want to hedge myself when markets are not doing so well, my only gripe is that I didn't do this years ago. As time goes on, I expect my dividend growth income to increase organically and inorganically through raises and new capital deployed on a continuous basis, whether it's from dividends received or new contributions. My ROTH and brokerage account will be geared towards DGI while my 401kplan will be strictly mutual funds, having no choice in that department.

My overall balances and payouts are down--the income stream is down by about 2600 from last year but I expect that to improve with time as I rely less and less from mutual funds. My dividends/capital gains for 2014 was 20k vs 17.48k for 2015....So, there was a hiccup but that's not because of DGI stocks in my portfolio.


HERE'S TO 2016!!


Good luck guys...
Reply
#6
Yep, I appreciate the post cannew, and the thread. It's funny because people make fun of those who say "it's not a loss if you don't sell it", but that is EXACTLY what it is.

Warren Buffett said that you shouldn't buy stocks if you are not willing to hold them for ten years (over a full market cycle).

Charlie Munger was quoted saying don't hold a stock you are not comfortable seeing go down 50% (i.e. there is a likelihood that your stock might go down 50%).

So these are 100% realities, there are always sectors getting batted down and sectors popping up...This past year clearly some retail benefited from low gas prices and the strong dollar, while most energy was pummeled. But the strength of high quality companies did not change, this is all temporary. Imagine when energy comes back up, those with significant energy holdings will see a huge pop in their portfolio value for the year while some other portfolios won't do as well.

So I definitely have to stay the course, buckle in, hold on tight, and keep trying to intelligently reinvest my dividends as prudently as possible, with a focus on high quality diversification, income all the way, capital gains are incidental and typically rise in the long term with good businesses who manage to increase their earnings power over the long run!

Happy new year all
Reply
#7
I imagine now that we have 2015 officially behind us that calendar year 2016 will be a much better accumulation phase in oil/energy, industrial's and consumer goods such as ADM that have been affected by the price of oil. Unless it's to stabilize and strengthen the bottom line of the business hopefully we don't experience many dividend cuts--I'm heavily invested in oil/energy but I'm okay with that, even a dividend cut to companies such as KMI is not going to make me sell, in fact, I'll buy one lot of KMI sometime this year to bring it up to a full position. Another favorite are the rail roads. It should be really good for refineries/chemical makers such as Phillips66 as oil prices stay low.

The financial/insurance/real estate sectors has always been one of my favorites and rising interest rates, even small raises, should be good for these companies. I'd love to add some Wells Fargo (maybe) and to my Canadian Banks this year. I'll watch and see what happens to the REITS. Last year was fairly strong for my insurance stocks and I expect the same this year.

Maybe I'll be able to initiate some good consumer goods/durable's/services. Not sure, maybe companies such as WMT and VFC.

I expect a strong outing in Healthcare and Technology, Healthcare just because I expect continued growth as usual and will most likely initiate an investment on GILD before the market catches onto this company. Technology, my rationale is anything that helps companies save money will do great this year.

Well, these are just some of my early morning thoughts--work time : /
Reply
#8
Markets went up...markets went down...

Kinder lost control (or did he?)

My equity values were slightly negative....

And because of that the 3.41% dividends and interest we received bought more shares...

As did our savings plan...just under 4 years to go....tik toc....

In my opinion it was a good year, obviously not a great year, but we are passively wealthier than Jan 1, 2015.

Chin up...press on!

Cheers
There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up
Frederick Buechner
Reply
#9
Hi I was just going to start a different thread asking about this.  Could you guys walk me through the optimism?

I'm a new dividend investor and have invested around 50,000 so far.  I've done my best to educate myself and I started reading the 'intelligent investor' for the second time and the point about even the most educated investors still struggle to beat the market gave me pause.  It has made me question my choice of being a dividend investor.

Over the past year i've seen a -6.7% drop in the basis of my portfolio but this is offset by 3.3% from the dividends.  My alternative was basically the couch potato portfolio which has seen a +6.46% increase.  My increase in Yield vs Yield on Cost was about 9%

I'm actually not concerned with the losses but am concerned with me not using my money better. I'm just wondering, from your experiences, were you happy with the choice of going towards dividend investing.  How did you persevere during the early years when it was slow? And are the later years worth the slow beginning years?

Talk me off the cliff here guys.
Reply
#10
(01-11-2016, 11:16 PM)Russellhantz Wrote: Hi I was just going to start a different thread asking about this.  Could you guys walk me through the optimism?

I'm a new dividend investor and have invested around 50,000 so far.  I've done my best to educate myself and I started reading the 'intelligent investor' for the second time and the point about even the most educated investors still struggle to beat the market gave me pause.  It has made me question my choice of being a dividend investor.

Over the past year i've seen a -6.7% drop in the basis of my portfolio but this is offset by 3.3% from the dividends.  My alternative was basically the couch potato portfolio which has seen a +6.46% increase.  My increase in Yield vs Yield on Cost was about 9%

I'm actually not concerned with the losses but am concerned with me not using my money better. I'm just wondering, from your experiences, were you happy with the choice of going towards dividend investing.  How did you persevere during the early years when it was slow? And are the later years worth the slow beginning years?

Talk me off the cliff here guys.

Start here:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3802986-...ommenter=1

http://fortune.com/2015/04/27/dividend-s...ar-market/

http://www.investinganswers.com/investme...tocks-6103

I'll be back with more....have a leaky roof and the Pro just showed up....

In the mean time step back and pour two fingers... Wink
There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up
Frederick Buechner
Reply
#11
Hey Russell. How recently did you start building your DG portfolio?

I think what you're experiencing makes perfect sense and is very common. Assuming that you started in the last year or two, you began accumulating when prices were lofty, and now we're into a bit of a dip, and those purchases are feeling a bit iffy now. It always feels crummy to watch prices drop below your purchase price. (It is telling about what kind of investor you are if it feels crummy: (i) because your portfolio has lost value; or (ii) because you could have gotten the same shares even cheaper!)

To address the main thrust of your post, I think it might be valuable for you to clarify your goals. I personally am NOT trying to "beat the market." Indeed, once you own 20 or 30 of largest, most diversified companies in the world, your portfolio doesn't really look all that different from a big mutual fund. In that sense, from a share price perspective, your portfolio is likely to track the broader indexes fairly closely. The reason I don't just index all of my money is that I am also not trying to match the market. My focus is on the income stream that my portfolio generates. In other words, my portfolio is not really very different from what you might find in a big mutual fund, but my shares have been lovingly pieced together at times when the companies were out of favor, or the general market had pulled back, providing me with a steady, and steadily growing income stream.

Right now, my dividend income stream is not nearly enough to live on, so I still work and reinvest the dividends. But that income stream is surely growing, in ways that I can measure and predict (to some extent). Yes, it can feel painfully slow in the beginning. But that is true of all investing. It takes a long while until the snowball takes on a life of its own. Unless you are very high income, you're looking at decades. And it really does take a long-term mindset. There will be tons of ups and downs along the way. You'll never know if prices will offer a better value in the days and weeks after you buy. But if you cultivate the right attitude, you can turn yourself into someone who loves when the market goes down -- because that is when the income streams you are buying goes on sale. And if you think getting a bargain on an airline ticket or new car feels good, it feels a hundred times better to get a great deal on an income stream that will last the rest of your life.  

My favorite trick for surviving the early years: if you haven't already, make a spreadsheet to track all of your dividends as they come in (regardless of whether or how you reinvest them). Track them however you want, but make sure you include a quarterly total. And then create a graph that compares each quarterly total over time. Be patient and stick with it for a year or two. And if you have access to the data (I'm not sure why you wouldn't), go back and do this from the day you started your portfolio. Seeing the dividends grow in this manner I find very inspiring, and it keeps me on track and excited to see the growth in the next quarter.

Again, assess your goals. If you really want to beat the market (in the short to medium term), you'll probably need something more aggressive (and risky!) than DGI. If you want to simply match the market, you might be better off indexing. But if you want to track the market fairly well while focusing on a growing income stream, then be patient and stick with DGI. Look at this dip as an opportunity to improve your portfolio, by adding to your best positions and lowering your average cost per share, or by initiating new positions in excellent companies at reasonable prices.

Best of luck!
Reply
#12
Kerim hit the nail on the head. I concur with his thesis and follow a similar model - I am not trying to beat the market, but I am also not trying to match the market. If that was all I was trying to do, I would simply go with index funds and wouldnt bother with individual stocks. Slowly building an income stream over time is what I am focusing on. The daily, monthly, quarterly and even yearly ups and downs dont concern me.

I am reminded of Warren Buffett's quote - "I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years." Theres a lot of wisdom in that quote. We shouldnt be looking to make money by trading in and out over a year and should always look at long term horizons.

Personally, I am terrible at timing the market. I seldom pick a bottom when investing, and if I do - its because I am lucky. But over time, these little bumps dont matter. Looking at my own personal portfolio - whatever Ive bought in the last year or so has seen negative returns (on the book only), but whatever i bought 3, 4, 5 years ago are handsomely up thanks to the effect of time. The flip side is that I wish these stock prices were lower so that I could buy more Smile

Best
R2R
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)