January 2020 Dividend Stock Purchases

I just want to begin by saying that for all those who passed away in the helicopter crash on Sunday which led to Kobe Bryant's passing, they and their families remain in my thoughts and prayers. As I write this post, Kobe Bryant's passing from a couple days ago has sunk in and the healing process is still progressing for me.

As someone that has learned several valuable life lessons indirectly from Kobe over the years (probably deserving of its own post next week) and who deeply admired Kobe, this loss hits me pretty hard. I can only imagine the grief and sorrow that those closest to the victims of crash are experiencing at this time.

On a lighter note, the Milwaukee Bucks are a win away from at least securing a 0.500 season.. This is despite the fact that we are still over 2 weeks away from NBA All-Star Weekend and the season is barely half over!

With all that aside, since I don't anticipate any additional dividend stock purchases this month, I will be discussing my dividend stock purchases for January 2020 in this post.

Retirement Account Activity:

I entered this month with 87.442 shares of my mutual fund holding, Capital Income Builder (CAIBX). I ended the month with 91.109 shares of CAIBX as a result of the $244.00 in capital contributions to my retirement account between my employer and myself, of which $233.03 was invested after the sales charges shown above.

The 3.667 shares of CAIBX that were added this month boosted my annual forward dividends by $7.85, which equates to a 3.37% yield based on the $233.03 of net capital that was deployed during January in the retirement account.

Taxable Accounts Activity:

Transitioning to my Webull brokerage account, I added 4 shares to my position in Iron Mountain (IRM), bringing my total position to 8 shares.

The 4 shares of IRM added during the month of January at a total cost of $123.32 increased my annual forward dividends by $9.90, which is equivalent to an 8.02% yield on this block of shares.

I would refer interested readers to my recent Seeking Alpha article on IRM for a detailed explanation on my decision to double my position in the company.

Moving to the bulk of my activity during the month of January, the most recent activity in my Robinhood account was my purchase of 1 unit of Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) at a cost of $28.29, bringing my ownership to 28 units.

The $1.78 in annual forward distributions that were added as a result of this purchase work out to a 6.29% yield. I'm continuing to build upon my position in EPD because of the company's stable operating fundamentals and the steady distribution increases.

Prior to the purchase of EPD in my portfolio, I decided to add another share to my position in The GEO Group (GEO) at a cost of $15.37.

This brings my total position to 12 shares and added $1.92 in annual forward dividends to my portfolio income, which equates to an absurd yield of 12.49%.

I expect my article that provides rationale for this recent investment decision to be published on Seeking Alpha in the hours after I publish this blog post.

Simon Property Group (SPG) was a new position that I recently added to my portfolio, which I explained in a recent article on Seeking Alpha (please note the article is behind SA's paywall).

I initiated a 3 share position in SPG at a total cost of $435.24, which boosted my annual forward dividends by $25.20.

This works out to a yield of 5.79%, which is IMO a nice entry point for a company with the steady dividend growth of SPG and its stable operating fundamentals.

The last bit of activity in my Robinhood portfolio was when I decided to open a 2 share position in General Dynamics (GD) at a cost of $361.80.

When considering the $8.16 in annual forward dividends added by this purchase, my entry yield on this position is 2.26% (with a raise likely to be announced in March).

Like IRM and SPG, I recently explained the factors on Seeking Alpha (also behind the paywall now) that led me to initiate a position in GD.

Summary:

Overall, my annual forward dividends/distributions were boosted by $55.53, from $873.51 entering this month to $929.04 to end this month (note annual forward dividends/distributions are off by $0.01 d/t rounding on the IRM position).

Of the $55.53 of annual forward dividends/distributions added this month, $54.81 came directly as a result of my investments during this month.

On the $1,197.05 of net capital deployed during the month, this represents a 4.58% yield, which is right around my target yield of 4.0-4.5%.

Dividend increases during January 2020 chipped in the remaining $0.72 that was added to my income during the month.

Discussion:

How was your January in terms of capital deployment? Did you add any new positions like I did via SPG and GD?

As always, thanks for reading and I welcome any comments that you leave below.