Stocks Added to Collection of Stock Analyses (Update) - June 2014

For those who are not yet familiar with my extensive collection of individual dividend stocks. The collection is currently comprised of 299 stock analyses (and still growing) with links to various stock analyses that I found throughout the dividend blog community.

 

The collection was created in a Google Docs Spreadsheet so that I may continue to maintain and update the list periodically. My plan is to immediately provide updates for new stock analysis the moment I become aware of them. So please make sure to check back periodically as the list will be updated frequently.

 

The collection goes back two years but to highlight the stock analyses that have recently been created during the last 2 months, I have provided NEW!! at the end.

However, the following are companies with stocks analysis prepared during the month of June:

 

JUNE 2014

1. Accenture PLC
2. Automatic Data Processing, Inc
3. Baxter International Inc
4. Cardinal Health, Inc
5. Coca Cola Co
6. Colgate-Palmolive Co
7. Consolidated Edison
8. Darden Restaurant, Inc
9. General Mills, Inc
10. HCP, Inc
11. Kimberly-Clark Corp
12. Kinder Morgan Inc
13. Medtronic, Inc
14. Meredith Corp (2 analyses)
15. Occidental Petroleum Corp
16. PepsiCo, Inc (2 analyses)
17. Procter & Gamble Co
18. Realty Income Corp (2 analyses)
19. Reynolds American, Inc
20. Target Corp (3 analyses)
21. Waste Management, Inc

My goal is to make this collection become the centralized source where one begins their research on a particular dividend stock company or at the very least, a source to confirm if a company stock is worth buying. Whether your a beginner or a veteran, I want this list to become an invaluable reference tool for you all. Best part, unlike other subscription based sites, I plan to keep this completely free for everyone to enjoy and benefit from. Feel free to share with all of your friends and family! 

 

Click on Link Below

Collection of Stock Analyses

2-YEAR Collection of Stock Analyses!

 

 

Although our family has a stock portfolio of roughly $30K and I have been investing in individual stocks for several years now, I still consider myself new to dividend stock investing.

So for the past year, I have been spending a lot of time researching and trying to learn everything I can about the world of dividend stock investing. Although I believe I have come a long way from where I was just this last summer, I know I there is still much more about the topic that I have still yet to learn. 

 

But if I was asked to choose only one thing that I found to be most helpful to me or anyone who is just discovering the world of dividend stock investing, I would have to say it is the various dividend stock analyses that several bloggers provide for their readers. I have to say that I have learned a lot simply from reading them. The thoroughly review and explanations from each stock analysis have taught me the key things to look for and also what I may want to avoid. Collectively, I believe I have learned enough of the basics to effectively evaluate and find a stock to purchase or otherwise reasons to sell a stock.
 

2-Year Collection of Stock Analyses:

So as a tribute to these bloggers, I have spent the last several weeks building an extensive collection of individual dividend stocks with links to various stock analyses that I found throughout the dividend blog community. The collection is currently comprised of 289 stock analyses (and still growing). The collection goes back as far as two years, but to highlight the stock analyses that have recently been created during the last 2 months, I have provided NEW!! at the end.

The collection was created in a Google Docs Spreadsheet so that I may continue to maintain and update the list periodically. My plan is to immediately provide updates for new stock analysis the moment I become aware of them. So please make sure to check back periodically as the list will be updated frequently.

My goal is to make this collection become the centralized source where one begins their research on a particular dividend stock company or at the very least, a source to confirm if a company stock is worth buying. Whether your a beginner or a veteran, I want this list to become an invaluable reference tool for you all. Best part, unlike other subscription based sites, I plan to keep this completely free for everyone to enjoy and benefit from. Feel free to share with all of your friends and family! 

 

Click on Link Below

Collection of Stock Analyses

 

Retirement Accounts (Update) - June 2014

 

For several years now, our retirement accounts have been growing at a decent pace...this year, however, the performance has been pretty anemic! I am still thankful that we are not losing money. But that is why our family has now decided to switch our focus towards building our Dividend Stocks Portfolio and P2P Lending Accounts so as to have optional income streams in retirement. Nevertheless, we will still continue to track these accounts as they are still part of our retirement plan.
 

EXISTING RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS - JUNE UPDATE:

Below is a quick update to show the current values of our retirement accounts as of June 1, 2014.  For a more comprehensive list of values (beginning January 2014) and details of these accounts, please visit the Retirement Accounts page on our blog.

 

JUNE 2014

 

PENSION

Cash Value of Pension: $199,481 ($1,788 increase from May total of $197,693)
 

457K

Total value of 457K: $115,210 ($2,320 increase from May total of $112,890)
 

Roth IRAs

Total value of Roth IRA accounts: $51,346 ($967 increase from May total of  $50,379)

 
Overall, the month of May was a decent month as our retirement accounts increase $5,075 from the May 1, 2014 totals.  As it stands, the total amount of our retirement accounts is currently valued at: $366,037.

P2P accounts (update) - June 2015

 

May was decent month for us on Lending Club as we purchased a total of $1,150 worth of notes this month. At the end of May, our Lending Club account balance was at $7,729.96. We received $471.17 in payments from our active notes in May; of which, we received, $43.36  (an increase of $2.85/mo.) in interest.  The principal balance of our active notes was $7,030.86 (an increase of $707.79 from April total), with $350.00 of loans in funding and a remaining cash balance of $349.10.  We are currently generating 5.28% on our seasoned notes.

 

 

We have not yet added any money to our Lending Club cash balance as we normally do at the beginning of each month but will likely add something before the end June.

  

May was another good month for us on Prosper as we purchased a total of $470 worth of notes this month. At the end of May, our Prosper account balance was at $7,884.42. We received $297.13 in payments from our active notes in May; of which, we received, $53.69 (an increase of $4.27/mo.) in interest.  The principal balance of our active notes was $7,424.98 and a remaining cash balance of $459.44.  We are currently generating 7.76% on our seasoned notes.

 

 (we just added $200 of cash at the beginning of May)
 

Please note that we just added $200 to our Prosper Account on June 1 so the $8,109.43 number is inclusive of this recent deposit. We decided to add some more funds because with the pending investments of $534.00, we only have a remaining cash balance of $100.44. 

In an effort to grow both P2P accounts, we are currently re-investing all of the payments that we receive from our notes. And when the cash balance is low, we are continuing to add more funds to the account so that we may constantly purchase new notes.

 

NOTES CRITERIA:

Our family has been investing in peer-to-peer lending notes for approximately 3 years now. And because of past defaults, we have now refined our search criteria. As a result, we now take a slightly more conservative approach with the notes we invest in. Currently, we only invest in notes that fit the following initial criteria:

• Amount requested is under $6,000;
• Credit score of 700 or more; and
• Monthly payment will be less than $250.

From those we evaluate (Employment Status):

• The borrower's income (prefer > $50,000 but depends on amount requested);
• Length of employment (must be > 2 years); and
• Their occupation (certain occupations, known to be more secured, are more desirable).

We then look at (Ability To Pay):

• Their credit history;
• Revolving balance; and
• Debt to income level, etc.

We do not invest in any notes where borrow is currently delinquent, of if they have had  a public record within the last 12 months. We also do not invest in notes where the description provided is "Other." We feel that there is too much risk involve when the borrower is not willing to reveal why he/she needs the money.

Click here to view our the current value of your peer-to-peer lending accounts.

Mortgage Balance (Update) - June 2014



If you have viewed our family's Net Worth Page, you probably already know that it does not include the equity in our home.  Although, we do realize that it is technically part of our overall net worth, we decided that since our home equity is not an asset that we can count on for income (unless we sell and buy something cheaper) we would exclude it from our net worth calculation.

 

 

For the purpose of this blog, we are more interested in documenting our loan balance rather than our home equity.  With that said, we will use the current Zillow value as our estimated home value and use it to figure out the percentage we owe on our home. For those interested, we will include the amount of our home equity, but know that we are less concerned with the equity since we have no plans to cash out or otherwise sell our home. Our main goal is to pay off our home on or before my retirement date. 

 

Home Value:
According to Zillow, our home is currently worth: $768,380 (up from $746,101 in May)

Mortgage Balance (June 2014): $347,098.15

Percentage Owed: 45.17% (down from 46.7% in May)

Home Equity: $421,281.85 (up from $397,319.19 in May)

For those that have not read the Preface on our home equity, we currently hold a 15-year fixed rate mortgage at the incredibly low rate of 2.875%.  My goal is to retire within 13 1/2 years so we are setting out to pay off our mortgage on or before my retirement date. 

Although we don't consider home equity as part of our net worth, it still is nice to see our home equity grow.  This last month was an great month in that regard with our home equity growing approximately $23,962. As for percentage owed, the number continues to decrease ever so slightly. The percentage dropped 1.53% this past month.  With our mortgage balance, I'll certainly accept that as a decent month. :)

Dividend Stocks Portfolio (Update) - June 2014

 

Here is the recent update to our dividend stocks portfolio – June 2014.

SALES

As noted in the narrative for our dividend stocks portfolio, we are in the process of rebalancing our portfolio to meet our current stock criteria. Some of our holdings, therefore, do not reflect our current goals, but we are in the process of selling a few of them as they reach our limit price. We continued to sell a few shares this past month but still have a bit more to go.  My goal is to finish the transition sometime before the end of the year. 

 

With that said, we have sold the following 3 positions this past month:

5/6/14

35 shares of BBD (Banco Bradesco) at $15.50/share ($542.49)

• Estimated Annual Dividend Lost: $10.90

5/7/14

35 shares of FTR (Frontier Communications Corp) at $5.88/share ($205.80)

• Estimated Annual Dividend Lost: $14.00

5/27/14

226 shares of BSBR (Banco Santander Brasil) at $6.80/share ($1,536.80)

• Estimated Annual Dividend Lost: $216.06

 TOTAL VALUE OF ALL SALES: $2,285.09*

OVERALL DECREASE TO ANNUAL DIVIDENDS: $240.96

*We receive 100 free trades per year through our brokerage account so there was no commission paid on these sales.

PURCHASES

May was a pretty busy month as we made a total of 9 purchases during the month.  In addition to the proceeds from the 3 sales shown above, we also had some cash reserves from our stock sales from April. Our purchases this month is putting our family's dividend portfolio one step closer to where we want to be. I felt we did a pretty good job grabbing a few value buys while staying diversified in our purchases. 

 

The following are the actual buys that we made during the month of May:

5/7/14

25 shares of ARTNA (Artesian Resources Corp) at $21.70/share ($542.50).

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $21.20

5/15/14
20 shares of ARI (Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance Inc) at $16.40/share ($328.00).

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $32.00

5/20/14
10 shares of TGT (Target Corp) at $56.90/share ($569.00).

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $17.20

10 shares of ESV (Ensco plc) at $49.33/per share ($493.30).

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $25.00

10 shares of TCK (Teck Resources ltd) at $22.50/share ($225.00).

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $8.18

10 shares of ARTNA (Artesian Resources Corp) at $21.23/share ($212.30).

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $8.48

5/21/14
25 shares of ARCP (American Realty Capital Properties Inc) at $12.50/share ($312.50)

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $25.00

5/23/14
5 shares of TGT (Target Corp) at $55.75/share ($278.75).

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $8.60

5/28/14
10 shares of AFL (Aflac Inc) at $61.00/share ($610.00).

• Estimated Annual Dividend Received: $14.80

TOTAL SPENT ON NEW ACQUISITION: $3,571.35*

OVERALL INCREASE TO ANNUAL DIVIDENDS: $160.46

*We receive 100 free trades per year through our brokerage account so there was no commission paid on this purchase.

 

DIVIDENDS

May was a really slow month in terms of dividends received as we had our lowest monthly dividend total this year. Nevertheless, so far this year, we are still averaging $135.48 in dividends each month. June is usually a big month as half of our holdings will be paying out next month. 

For the month of May, we receive the following dividends:

5/1/14 - Dividend from T (AT&T Inc): $18.56
5/9/14 - Dividend from BBD (Banco Bradesco): $0.71
5/15/14 - Dividend from ARCP (American Realty Capital Properties Inc): $4.17
5/16/14 - Dividend from KMI (Kinder Morgan Inc): $12.60
5/23/2014 - Dividend from ARTNA (Artesian Resources Corp): $4.30

OVERALL DIVIDENDS TOTAL THIS MONTH: $40.34*

* We currently receive our dividends as cash in all stock positions held.
  
In case you interested, our family's dividend stocks portfolio can be found here.