Thursday, July 20, 2017

Unilever, Home Depot vs. Lowe's vs. AMAZON??

Unilever
The maker of Axe, Best Foods, and Dove.  Dutch owned (graph above is in Euros) and aggressively pursued by Kraft-Heinz.  All the makings of a dramatic stock story.  I bought in on Wednesday $636.01 worth, and it is up a dollar today due to strong earnings data this morning.  With the dollar weakening, this stock only looks better.  Now sitting at about $610 a year in divs.

I decided to add Lowe's to my watchlist.  I think Home Depot and Lowe's are a duopoly, and I wouldn't mind a piece of them.  As I've said before, the retail market makes me cringe, but home improvement is the most appealing.  While I think HD is king, and I am a shareholder, I like how Lowe's aggressively pops up stores across the street from HD, and goes for the more aesthetic look, while HD has no shame appealing to the masculinity of the population.  I think both would be a good investment.

Lo and behold, a few minutes after I add Lowe's to my watchlist, Amazon cuts a deal with Sears for appliances sold online, causing HD to tumble down 6+ dollars per share!  While this is great news for Sears (up 15% last check), who was basically ready to be put down like Old Yeller, I don't see how this is bad news for HD.  HD matches prices with Amazon last I checked.  Wouldn't you rather buy your hot water heater for the same price or lower from HD than from an online delivery?  Maybe not, but I still think large appliance purchases still command time from the consumer to go to the store and check it out.  I'll keep an eye on things, as usual, it will be interesting to see if HD bounces, and if Lowe's is still appealing when it is their turn to be considered.  Right now I expect to buy into CHD for my next purchase.

Friday, July 14, 2017

Watchlist & Expenses

UN & CHD
I've been watching these two.  They are both priced in the $50s, similar P/Es and betas, both are near the top of their 52 week highs (not a good thing for me), but they are both consumer staples.  Neither is a dividend aristocrat.  UN is more appealing due to the yield - and foreign presence - but a bit more speculative due to Kraft-Heinz attempting to buy them.  Apparently they were turned down, and there's some talk about a hostile bid takeover.  I have Kraft-Heinz in my watchlist, so I find this situation intriguing.  Right now, UN, then CHD are the two next in line for purchases to add to my collection, in that order.  While I was paid today, i suspect the transfer won't happen until Wednesday next week - historically the worst day to buy stocks.  If this is the case, I will adjust the withdrawal timing to happen on Monday, usually the best day to buy stocks as the markets reel from weekend news.  

When assessing one's bills, it helps to get them down.  While having a family tends to cause some volatility (for example, the past two weeks I've been buying school books), I usually have enough bonuses and SPP proceeds to account for it.  Some bills are annual, or semi-annual, but I'm going to break them down into monthly increments and see what I can do to reduce them.  I'll try to target one bill a blog.

Water: $15-94(?)
Typically $15-18 a month covers the water usage in my household.  May jumped up to $45 as I started increasing watering the backyard to save the grass in this hot summer - it has an aesthetic look being green instead of dirt in the yard - but probably not worth the cost.  I also have two small fruit trees I want survive (in the interest of self-sustenance).   June ended up $94!  This is with daily double watering in the PM and early AM.  I turned off the AM watering yesterday, I'll see what impact it has.  As the weather cools, I'll be able to dial it back - but it was quite a shock to see that - I once received a $12 water bill and bragged about it to my friends.  Perhaps if I invested in more fruits/vegetables, and learn how much to water during different parts of the year, it might be a good return, especially with shade...  I'll work on cutting this one by half next month.   New Goal: $46

Thursday, July 6, 2017

This week's purchase

My first transfer came over from my paycheck today, about a week later.  I'm not sure if the July 4th holiday slowed this down or not.  I guess I'll find out in 2 weeks.

I've taken to assessing my income and where it is going.  While I do this often, I'd like to increase what I put into my brokerage account.  This same desire pushed me to work 110 hours the past 2 weeks.  This should help pay down some small debt which had crept up.

I had been researching SO and ABBV to add to my list.  Both are attractive, but SO would be my THIRD electric utility, and my 4th utility in general.  I had intended to buy ABBV, which would be my third in the healthcare sector, so on that score they were pretty even (and not very diverse for my portfolio).  Like I said they were both attractive enough for me to consider them over everything else in my watchlist.

My funds came in this morning, and with the jobs news positive, I was ready to buy at the bell before the run-up.  I took a look at both, and as I could purchase more shares of SO and add almost $28 to my annual divvy income, I pulled the trigger on that one.  Well, there was no run-up today.  In fact, the only stock of mine in the green was little ZN, about 200% up from when I bought it.  It still isn't much money, so I'll hang onto it to see if they strike oil.

SO thankfully remained flat for the day.  The other reason I liked SO was that it's yield, while a bit high at 4.89%, helped bring my portfolio average over 3%.  I want to maintain being over, but not too much over, that yield target.  I think the price drop of many of my shares also drove the yield up a bit as well.  I don't think we will get much more gain in the market for a while until we get some positive news on the healthcare repeal and the tax cuts.

SO - Southern Co. - Utilities: Electric - 12 shares
Cost Basis:  $575.6
Cost/Share:  $47.97
Closing Price:  $47.40
Market Value:  $568.8
Weight: 2.91%
Div/Share:  0.58
Yield: 4.89%
Annual Div Est: $27.84
YOC: 4.84%
Beta: 0.12
P/E: 17.62