April 2023 Dividend Portfolio Update

Time flies when you are having fun and feels like April was over before we could even get ourselves completely settled in and back on track.

As the markets struggled for direction so too did our dividend portfolio. At times it seemed like April was going to be a banner month as earnings overall were turning out somewhat better than expected. Then our account took a hit with the earnings release for Abbvie (ABBV) which is the largest position in our portfolio. The subsequent drop in the stock price was a bit odd as the numbers were actually pretty good, but the erosion in the sales of their flagship drug after losing patent protection was just too much and the stock sold off.

Over the last couple of trading days the markets rallied and ABBV recovered a small portion of the drop. Our portfolios roller coaster ride ended slightly in the positive for the month which we are always happy to see. Of concern going forward is the continued volatility, continued fed incompetence and yet another bank failure which could have further negative impact on the economy and the markets.

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March 2023 Dividend Portfolio Update

Yay, March is over and we are back on the road! I’ll save the details for our larger financial update and we apologize in advance for this hastily thrown together dividend portfolio update.

We just left our winter quarters and have relocated in Utah and because of the work schedule we had in Arizona there are a lot of things we need take care of and a lot of things we need to catch up on before we can get back to our regular lives. So in this update we are going to cut right to the chase and dive into the details.

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February 2023 Dividend Portfolio Update

There is only one word that can sum up our dividend portfolio for the month of February, “blah”!

We could probably end this blog quickly as this was just one of those months where nothing exciting really happened. The only exception is that our dividend from ABBV hit a small milestone and continues to be our top performer. February is typically a slow dividend month in general and our contributions to the portfolio were abysmal on top of that. While we managed to eke out some small year over year growth it wasn’t very impressive as you will soon see.

Even more frustrating is that there are so many opportunities to pick up shares of some great dividend companies right now with JNJ, MMM and others trading at low levels. But it’s no money, no funny time for us as our income sources for funding this account are as dry as death valley in July and there is no

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January 2023 Dividend Portfolio Update

January was a nice month for our dividend portfolio holdings and the markets in general. While progress in the account is very slow going it’s fun to watch the account grow ever so slightly each month.

In the past we would usually post every couple months at the most as the portfolio was mostly out of sight out of mind and didn’t garner much attention until we either had money to invest or saw a statement. Now that the portfolio has grown to become a larger part of our overall investment picture we have started paying more attention to it and also started creating some tracking spreadsheets. As an accountant this is the fun part as I personally love doing monthly and annual comparisons and even some projections if the mood hits me.

Now that we are over a year into this experience it’s fun to gather some of this data and see how our journey is tracking, which helps in the motivation department as well. We started adding some comparison information into our last update, which you can read here, and starting with this update we will add more data and attempt to provide consistent monthly updates on the portfolio and our holdings going forward.

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2022 Dividend Portfolio Rundown

It’s time to close the books on the economic disaster that was 2022 and we are going to start by closing out our dividend portfolio update for the year. This will also be the first time we incorporate some more historical data points in order to give more visual prospective to the growth of our portfolio and positions.

Since our last update just a few short weeks ago the markets have dropped, we sold our losing position in the soon to be taken private Weber (WEBR), we reinvested the proceeds elsewhere and then we contracted Covid-19 for the first time. The perfect end to the year that was 2022!

As we sit here, isolated from the world around us, we have time to reflect on what went wrong in 2022 and plan for a better 2023. At least until we start hacking uncontrollably, then it’s time to go back to bed and take a nap.

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Dividend Portfolio Update

It’s been awhile since we last provided an update on our dividend portfolio. This wasn’t by design, but we really didn’t have much to report and our time has been occupied with our work-camping jobs and the never ending array of activities we have to prepare for.

Since our last update the markets have moved back up and now appear to be wavering ahead of the next federal reserve meeting which will bring yet another rate increase. Our portfolio has remained in relatively good shape, aside from the Weber (WEBR) debacle, and we continued to add shares to our existing positions as funds became available. And of course, we also reinvested all dividends received.

As for the Weber position, in our last update we discussed the options of either selling out of the position, since they no longer pay a dividend, or doubling down to get to 100 shares in order to sell covered call options and generate some income in leu of dividends. We decided to go the route of adding to our position and generate income, but soon after we wrote that blog the largest shareholder offered to purchase the rest of the company for a measly $6.25 per share. This put us in a bind as the shares were already trading over that price and our cost basis is also much higher than that. Not a great position to be in! As a result we did not make any purchases and our position remains the same as it has been. We would like to get to the 100 share mark, but we were obviously not buying above the bid price.

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Dividend Portfolio Update

It’s been a little over two months since we last provided an update on our dividend portfolio and there have been some interesting, and not so good, developments since then.

Obviously the markets have been going through quite a rough patch, to put it mildly, over the last two months. The result is that our portfolio has taken a little bit of a hit on the top line number. On the bright side it represents chance to add some shares to our holdings at a lower price. It can be hard to watch and difficult to stomach some of these roller coaster days, but we have to keep the big picture in mind.

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