Another slow month for realized gains. I only sold one holding for minimal gain, but I was able to invest 100% of my funds as the market stayed depressed. If not for an injection of new funds from a transferred IRA, I would be 100% invested right now.
As indicated, I had my second slowest month ever for realized gains and I only earned 7.3% on those. I'm also marginally in the red for unrealized gains related to the current holdings. But I went ex-div on 5 of 6 holdings, so March will be my biggest dividend month to date.
I sold the following:
- Owens and Minor, Inc - This is the second time I've cycled through this stock.
I currently hold the following:
- Lockheed Martin Corp - Up 6.3% - I've now held some of these shares for 6 months and will be collecting the 2nd round of dividends on them. I'm tempted to cash in because the gains are reasonable, but I still like the topside on this.
- Exxon Mobil - Down 2.8% - I've been in the black on XOM several times since I've held this, but the gains have always been modest.
- FPL Group - Down 4.9% - This has been depressed since news of their rate case going south. But it's still a sound company, so I hope to see a bounce back in time.
- Exelon Corp - Down 3.8% - Another depressed utility holding company with sound numbers, but I might bail out with modest gains.
- Marathon Oil Corp - Up 3.6% - Small holding bought at a nice discount.
- FirstEnergy Corp - Down 0.3% - Another small holding purchased at an attractive price, but it's had some bad news lately keeping the price down.
No dividends were collected this month, but I'll be collecting dividends for all stocks except FirstEnergy in March. March income is already assured to be 250% of the paltry take for February. With a few sales, it could very easily be a big month. We'll see what the market has to offer!
For the first time, I have 100% of my available funds invested. The recent market drop has presented buying opportunities that I've not been able to pass up. So now I'm ready for a market run-up!
I've been able to follow my planned strategy and have observed rules relative to my buy-in price as the basis for making purchase decisions.
Strategy Rule Actual
Premium 25% 26.2%
Average 50% 28.1%
Discount 25% 45.7%
So I've actually been able to get in at more attractive prices that I anticipated, so this should provide great yields when I sell.
The big question is...When will I get an opportunity to sell? That hard to say. Obviously, I'm hopeful that the market will turn around soon and I'll be able to cash out these positions. But realistically, this probably will not happen quickly. So I may be dependent upon dividend income for the coming months. That's not so bad, as my current portfolio yields 3.92%, which is not so bad and is above current CD yields.
It's also worth pointing out that I'm not entirely shut out and can continue to invest if prices stay depressed. I have a small CD maturing this month that will roll into the ingestible funds pool and some larger CD maturing in August that will increase my ingestible funds by about 30%. So I'd prefer an immediate market turnaround, but I also have a strategy to continue to buy into an extended bull market.
