The month was fairly normal until the final week with Italy followed by Trump’s tariff rollout. In between we saw the on again – off again negotiating style with North Korea and China. Other than a couple of down days it appears the market is learning to ignore the noise. Again I used the dips to my advantage and stayed the course. May saw a rise in the S&P of 2.16% while my portfolio outperformed the index by registering a rise of 2.24%. YTD I still lag the S&P by 0.35%.
Portfolio Updates:
- Added to CMCSA (making another round lot)
- Added to my ETF group (CUT, EWA, EWW, JPMV, VGK)
- Added to GE (on the rail spin (WAB) news)
- Added SMTA (via SRC spin)
- Added to BKSC (via 10% stock dividend)
- Added to DGX on news of UNH strategic partnership
DIVIDENDS
This is where my main focus resides. Market gyrations are to be expected but my goal is to see a rising flow of dividends on an annual basis. I’m placing less emphasis on the quarterly numbers as the number of semi-annual, interim/final and annual cycles have been steadily increasing in my portfolio.
- May delivered an increase of 12.97% Y/Y fueled by dividend increases.
- May delivered a 15.98% increase over last quarter (February).
- Dividend increases averaged 12.14% with 55.98% of the portfolio delivering at least one increase (including 1 cut (GE).
- 2018 Dividends received were 46.53% of 2017 total dividends putting us on pace to exceed last year in early November.
Notes: the Q/Q shows an increasing trend line due only to timing of dividend payouts (pay date shifts). Y/Y is only on par with dividend increases as dividends received were used to purchase next quarter (rather than current quarter) dividends.
Spinoffs:
GE‘s rail unit to spin then merge with WEB
Mergers:
XRX merger with Fujifilm cancelled.
SHPG to merge into TKPYY
Summary
Any month with increasing dividends and beating the S&P has to be considered a good one.
Hope all of you had a good month as well.