Six Month – Portfolio Review

I didn’t start this blog until March of this year, but the thoughts for Divs4Jesus started back in September/October 2017. In November 2017 I decided to jump in and create a dividend portfolio that I was fully selected by me. My first purchase on November 6, 2017 was in OHI – I don’t fully remember how it got on my radar but I had a couple dollars laying around in the account (I had transferred all other assets out of my trading account just prior in anticipation of starting this portfolio, as to start with a clean slate) and decided to put whatever cash was there ‘to use’ while I figured out where and how I wanted to proceed.

It took me until the middle of December to actually fund the account and when I did I went full risk dumping 99% of the money into VALE. VALE is a mining company I’d been following for a while that I’d been cautious about entering into, but while doing so, missed out on it coming off record lows and doubling multiple times. Obviously, I still believe it has legs to move forward.

Since then I’ve tried to diversify my account. Having a high beta mining stock being 99% of my portfolio made it susceptible to wild swings in both directions. I wanted to settle that down a bit. As such, each month I’ve made it a goal to purchase a new stock (with new capital contributions to the account). My goal, as stated in the About section is to eventually get to around 33 quality stocks. Hopefully in accomplishing such, I’ll be able to balance my portfolio so that it’s not so heavily weighted/reliant on any one individual stock or section. So in short that’s a bit of history.

Going forward my hope is to not just document my purchases but to add my opinions and thought processes as to why I’m making such purchases in the first place. But before we look to the future of this blog lets take a look back at my performance over the first six months.

Charting my performance

Below is a chart that has tracked my progress since the beginning (Nov 6, 2017) through May 6, 2018. In general, I don’t really care day to day whether I’m up or down, but ultimately, my goal is to not only achieve quality dividend returns,  it’s also to at least match the broader market indexes. Well preferably to beat them. I think if I can accomplish such a feat I’ d consider it ‘money well spent invested.’

So as you can see from the chart below since my first ‘real’ purchase in mid-December 2017 I’ve had a positive unrealized return on my investment without taking into consideration dividend returns (only capital appreciation). The wild swings (up 20% to nearly brake even, 0%) is mostly due to the high percentage of my portfolio which is invested in VALE.  The steady climb in account value is due both to capital appreciation on the stocks as well as monthly capital contributions. Right now though growth in AV is more so because of the capital contributions, as I’m just starting out.

3.55x greater return than the S&P500 over 6 months

The one item that really stands out for me and gives me hope that I’m doing something right is that throughout the first six months I’ve either beaten or stayed even percentage wise vs the S&P500. As of May 6, 2018 my total percentage return stands at 9.62% since inception. The S&P500 over that same period has only returned 2.71%.  3.55x greater return than the S&P500. While I don’t expect this to be the norm and six months is a very short period of time, I’m happy with the results and hope to continue them through out the year.