The air is getting cooler and so are market fears. Here are my trades for the week:
Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF – increased position – Waiting till Friday did not get me the best price. Grabbed 3.5 shares @ $70.07 and a 3.53% yield.
Pinnacle West Capital Corp. (PNW) – increased position – PNWs turn this week for a utility buy. Grabbed 1.4 shares @ $62.94 and a 5.4% yield
Realty Income Corp (O) – increased position – Feels like this stock is always richly priced but taking advantage of this pull back. Grabbed 1.5 shares @ $57.54 and a 5.16% yield.
Inflation came in a tad bit worse than expected but strong earning reports on Thursday surged the market. Here are my trades for the week:
Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF – increased position – Best way to buy into this down market is with an ETF. Grabbed 4.4 shares @ $67.94 and a 3.64% yield.
Allete Inc (ALE) – increased position – Taking advantage of utilities while they are down. Grabbed 1.88 shares @ $47.85 and a 5.43% yield
Realty Income Corp (O) – increased position – Feels like this stock is always richly priced but taking advantage of this pull back. Grabbed 1.6 shares @ $55.95 and a 5.32% yield.
Some older readers of my blog may remember my old blog site on the wikidot platform (was surprised it is still up by the way) and one of the topics I was extremely focused on back then was dividend growth companies that routinely beat the rate of inflation. I viewed it as such an important topic I even created the Inflation Beaters Index that was based on David Fish’s Dividend Champion list and the end of the year there would be a summary post that looked like this:
I stopped maintaining the index at the end of 2020 because it took quite a bit of effort to maintain and I believe only one fellow blogger outside of myself was actually using the file. As such, when I migrated to the wordpress platform I dropped the topic.
The motivation for pulling his list together was to validate the claims that dividend growth investing is good for combating inflation. At the end of the day the results were just…ok. Not great but no bad either. At the end of 2020 the Dividend Champions list (companies that have grown their dividends for 25+ years consecutively) totaled 138 companies. Out of that only 49 companies (36%) were able to not just raise their dividend but also beat the rate of inflation every year. Needless to say companies whose dividend raises exceed the inflation rate are much more rare.
Going back to that original list, I pulled the top 6 with the longest streaks and updated their streaks. I realize 2022 is not over but if I list the companies most recent raise announcement we can take an educated guess if these companies will remain at the top. With only 2 of 6 having a definitive outlook of raising their dividend more than inflation it doesn’t paint a great picture.
Company
Ticker
Consecutive Yrs Inflation Beat thru 2021
2022 Div Incr.
Likelihood of beating 2022 Inflation
McDonald’s Corp.
MCD
43
10.14%
Definitely
Johnson & Johnson
JNJ
40
6.60%
Unlikely
Medtronic plc
MDT
38
7.93%
Slim
Automatic Data Proc.
ADP
0
Failed to beat 2021 Inflation
Computer Services Inc.
CSVI
37
7.40%
Slim
Target Corp.
TGT
37
20%
Definitely
By the end of this year I would estimate the list gets viciously cut down to just 16 to 18 companies out of the original 49. Inflation has been brutal this year all around and even dividend growth did not provide a reprieve. However, the raises we did receive did dull the pain some and it is better than the alternative of a dividend cut or freeze.
Fear is in the streets and short traders are in full swing doing their thing. Here are my trades for the week:
Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF – increased position – Every week seems to yield a new 52 week low. Grabbed 14 shares @ $67.94 and a 3.64% yield.
CTO Realty Growth (CTO) – increased position – Continuing to build out my smallest REIT position. Grabbed 10 shares @ $18.68 and a 8.14% yield
Pinnacle West Capital Corp (PNW) – increased position – Spreading the love and grabbing a utility while prices are down. Grabbed 3 shares @ $66.56 and a 5.11% yield.
Allete Inc. (ALE) – increased position – Yet another utility down on it’s luck. Grabbed 4 shares @ $49.32 and a 5.27% yield
After 35 years of clocking in and out of work and religiously saving at least 10% annually in my 401K every year, my countdown to financial independence is in sight. Each month is a step closer and let’s look at how this past month is getting me there.
For the month of September I made $5719.32; an increase of 10.15% versus this time last year. This is below my target of 12.5% but expected as NEWT cut back its dividend after the PPP loans were done. While it was a good month for dividends, my portfolio value severely dropped and was at the lowest point year to date as I am down -15.4%.
In August I received 5 dividend raises from LMT, MSFT, OGE, VZ & WPC. Together this will add an additional $55.36 to my annual income going forward. Thankfully the dog days of a dividend raise summer are over and raises begin to pick up in September.
On the family front my middle daughter came down with COVID. She has since recovered but was kind enough to share as I now have COVID as I write this update. Not really feeling up to writing much more so here are the charts:
Simple Dividend Growth 