September 2022 Dividend Income & Recent Buys

Autumn is finally here, bringing in some new change to the scenery. The markets, however, have remained in a continued downturn throughout the year. With any momentary gains being sold off steadily after.

From a recent WSJ article, the ‘buy the dip’ strategy hasn’t worked out so far this year:

It is the worst year for buying the stock-market dip since the 1930s. Instead of rebounding after a tumble, stocks have continued to fall, burning investors who stepped in to buy shares on sale. The S&P 500 has dropped 1.2% on average this year in the week after a one-day loss of at least 1%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. That is the biggest such decline since 1931. The extended downturn is putting a dent in the popular buy-the-dip trade, a strategy in which many investors found great success after the last financial crisis.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/buying-the-stock-market-dip-is-backfiring-this-year-11664064845

In fact, the US market index, S&P 500 is currently on path for it’s sixth worst year, ever. It’s currently down approximately -25%, YTD.

Only the years 1930 (-25.1%), 1931 (-43.8%), 1937 (-35.3%), 1974 (-25.9%) and 2008 (-37%) have been worse.

It could easily be in the top four worst unless there is an end of year rally.

The markets have recovered from all of those terrible years, and I am betting that it does so after 2022 as well.

It may take a while to turn around, but I am continuing to buy this never ending dip regardless. The main thing to remember is not to stop investing at the market ‘top’, which makes any recovery take much longer.

As many finance bloggers have mentioned for the last few years, the Fed has kept rates near zero for far too long, and they are now trying to remedy that with these rapid fire increases.

I remember seeing some chart where this is the fastest rates have ever risen, and from zero nonetheless, so hopefully the economy can handle it. Especially with the continued rise in inflation the Fed did not predict, but almost everyone else was saying.

There is something to be said of just sitting on any extra cash until the Fed changes its objective or “pivots”, as it could be a while, but we will see what happens.

It is nice to now get 2.25% interest on cash in the housing down payment savings account. And have been thinking about moving that to equities if this lasts into next year. As the housing market has not been following along in the downturn….

It will be interesting to see how many of the unprofitable companies fare during this new environment. So far, not so good. The meme/spac/crypto/nft market hype has also died down a bit. Some of those celebrity endorsement ads were a little too cringe earlier this year. Fortune did not end up favoring the brave, unless of course you were years early.

I have not come out unscathed, however, as I still hold some $sofi bags 💼 at around $14/sh. Live and you learn, I suppose.

I think Buffet once said that a company’s IPO, or initial public offering, stands for “It’s Probably Overpriced“, and that could not be more true recently.

So while DCA continues into investments (mostly index funds lately) the enthusiasm has changed from “yay buying this dip!😋” to more of a “sigh, I guess I’ll buy this dip…😔”

I’ve been trying to avoid seeing total portfolio values when logging into accounts to make buys, but sometimes I do catch a brief glance of it 😱 💀

On the plus side, the dividends and dividend increases have been cruising along though, which is a nice constant this year.

September Dividends:

Below is the dividend income received during September: (Values are in USD)

ADM – 26.00

AVGO – 45.10

AWK – 56.99

AWR – 21.86

CHD – 27.56

DFS – 27.60

ESGV – 70.90

JNJ – 56.50

KLAC – 20.80

LAND* – 4.62

MCD – 28.98

MMM – 29.80

MSFT – 23.56

NDAQ – 15.00

NEE – 11.48

NVDA – 0.60

PEP – 23.00

PEP* – 23.93

PSX* – 21.78

ROST – 8.68

SJW – 21.60

SO – 44.20

STE – 6.58

TGT – 70.20

UNP – 26.00

V – 12.75

VTI* – 13.97

WCN – 7.59

WM – 40.30

WMT – 20.72

WTRG – 25.83

WWE* – 2.04

YUM – 9.69

ZTS – 9.43

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September Dividend Total: $855.64

Total Payouts: 34 (positions marked “*” are held in an IRA)

Month Increase YoY: 14.2%

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Highest monthly total ever and looking to keep that going forward.

Recent Purchases:

These are mostly adding shares for specific portfolio allocation. Lots of factors go into investing, including one’s own personal timeline, risk tolerances, goals, and other assets, etc.

In no particular order…

2 MSFT @ $228

5 AAPL @ 141

5 AWK @ 128

3 NVDA @ 134

60 INTC @ 25

2 ENTG @ 89

1 ZTS @ 156

2 MMM @ 110

Also got the cash position down to 5% from 10% from buying index funds in the employment retirement account during the last couple months.

And finally, finished out the bulk of the buys with a few index purchases in a regular brokerage account.

Portfolio Top 13 Individual Holdings:

• American Water Works Co Inc (AWK)
• Waste Management Inc (WM)
• Target Corp (TGT)
• Microsoft Corp (MSFT)
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
• General Mills (GIS)
• Church & Dwight Co Inc (CHD)
• PepsiCo Inc (PEP)
• Abbvie Inc (ABBV)
• Lowe’s Companies Inc (LOW)
• Visa Inc (V)
• Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO)
• Automatic Data Processing Inc (ADP)

Don’t have much to say about the list, other than they are all pretty much in free fall. The one new name to the list, ADP, replaced AVGO, as apparently anything semiconductor related is heading to single digit P/E.

With the recent info of the US limiting/banning semi and technology exports to other countries, it’s hard to invest in individual companies or sectors with all the politics involved. It gets complicated to try and predict the future.

It will take at least a year for the lower earnings from this to cycle through, before better growth numbers can show up. And being in a recession certainly doesn’t help either.

For the sake of the top holdings list, going to try and make another push into tech names before year end.

Thank you for reading 🐅

-Divcome 

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