Added page Current Holdings

I've been messing with google docs, using formulae I found at Dividend Meter, and I decided to add the first two charts I made with them.  A holdings spreadsheet, and a bar graph showing how much I have in what stocks.  I have also made the dividend meter, and currently set the goal to 50k a year.  While that is higher than my original 40k, it is more realistic in case I have to spend my retirement in the U.S. instead of Central/South America (which needs about 30k/year).  I may change that later.


The guy who came up with the Dividend Meter (I'll call him DM), is a fairly aggressive dividend trader in relation to Young Dividend (YD).  I was perusing DM's site, and he has "Buy/Sell" flags for when a dividend increases/decreases for a given company.  I did end up adding the color change to my spreadsheet for increases/decreases, but I wasn't too keen on the buy/sell perspective.  Then I saw my Home Depot (HD) stock tumble the most from what I own - about 5% - which I somewhat expected since it is retail (see my previous post on retail stocks).  I had also discussed with my wife while traveling this weekend on being able to psychologically handle the possibility of 1/2 or all of my stocks losing their value - so it was fortuitous for me when I came back from my trip to see this encouragement on YD's blog:

"I'm probably sounding like a broken record by now... The purpose of my investments is to become an income source for my personal use in the future. I do not buy low to sell high. In fact I do not very much mind buying high as long as what I buy can provide me with income. Every share I buy I treat it like an ATM machine. As long as the company I buy can keep spitting cash out to me every quarter life is good. If the ATM machine starts to break because of deteriorating fundamentals, I will sell it since I want the ATM machine to keep spitting out cash.

My investing philosophy is much different than the popular media's view on stocks. I invest for income. Every share I purchase will pay me every quarter. Every quarter, that company will (literally) send a check to my mailbox which I can cash in to pay for my groceries, transportation, entertainment, and housing. I do not plan to ever sell shares in businesses that I own unless I believe there is something direly wrong with the company's fundamentals. In essence, I hold stock like I hold rental properties. Stocks provide me income every month of the year. I could care less what the market values the business as long as the business pays me every quarter.

In addition to providing income every month, I want my investments to increase their dividend checks every year by themselves. Companies grow either organically or through M&A. Inflation happens, causing company earnings to grow as well. The whole purpose of the CEO is to ensure that the company makes money and grows. His job is to do everything in his power to make that happen. In essence, the CEO is working for us, the shareholders. If management is not doing a good job, then the shareholders will vote to elect new members in. In the end, I want to benefit from the growth in the enterprise and that benefit is through dividend checks.

Since income is so important to me, I want to make sure that the businesses that I own are capable of paying me dividends every quarter without issue. I also want to make sure the business can increase that dividend every year no problem. As a result, I tend to rely on businesses with non-cyclical personalities. During economic recessions, the last thing I want to see is for a company to cancel its dividend due to "hard times". Most of the companies I own are in the consumer staples business. These companies sell products like food, drinks, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. They are boring companies but they provide very consistent growth and a very stable cashflow even during economic recessions."  

<  THIS.  

And so, I wait for my next cash infusion (probably in 9 days, as I have just set up external transfers on my account) to hopefully buy more Home Depot stock at a discount.  I have been debating at this level whether to diversify more, or increase holdings.  I think I will alternate every 2 weeks (as money comes in) between the two - if my watchlist has a better deal, I'll jump on it, if my current holdings have a better deal, I'll buy that.  Since I don't have free trades like YD (yet), and because I am starting slow (and low) on a percentage of my paycheck, I'll slowly test the waters before I jump in.  In the end, I want to buy low, not because I will sell high, but because I want to get as much stock as possible to pay out dividends.  I don't expect to post all of my assets as YD does, just this particular retirement goal.  I have my fingers in at least three other areas - 401k, property, and emergency funds (I have several of these, being a paranoid person, but the largest is enough to live off of the first three years in Central America - and it gets bigger every year).

Finally, I've been looking at tech stocks with a skeptical eye - especially Qualcomm.  It might just make it to my watchlist today...