Closing 2015 with 3 new DGI purchases

Last week I was still struggling about the stock selection for this month’s purchase but thanks to the arrival of a bit more capital than expected, and some free trades from my broker, the choice was easier than expected.

Instead of just one purchase, like I usually do, I added shares to an existing position and further diversified my portfolio with two new positions.

• Diageo (LON:DGE): I added 25 more shares to my existing position. A month or two ago I wrote a SA piece about the company’s dividend history, it’s well on its way towards becoming a UK dividend aristocrat. At the current share price, Diageo approaches my sweet-spot pre-tax dividend yield of 3 percent.

 

• PZ Cussons (LON:PZC): I bought 174 shares of PZ Cussons, that sounds like a lot but it’s because the company has a pretty low share price. PZ Cussons is a more focused, small-scale version of bigger consumer giants like Unilever and P&G. This UK-based company is not well known but has a very large presence in emerging markets. As I mentioned in my recent SA article about PZ Cussons, it has a 42-year dividend growth history and currently trades at a dividend yield of 2.79 percent.

 

• Sanofi (EPA:SAN): Last but not least, I bought 15 shares of French biotech/pharma hybrid Sanofi. I want more exposure to the healthcare sector and I think Sanofi offers an interesting entry point right now. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Sanofi’s recent dividend growth has been pretty low but the company offers an interesting pipeline and an enticing 3.56 percent entry-yield.

In total, these three purchases add an estimated 54.25EUR to my 2016 dividend income, bringing my 2016 forecast to 1183EUR — excluding unannounced dividend increases/cuts and currency exchange fluctuations.

Despite the new purchases, the new 2016 forecast is quite a bit lower than last month’s 1240EUR forecast. There are a number of reasons for this though, one of the biggest being the 75 percent dividend cut by Kinder Morgan. Secondly, the euro strengthened a bit versus the dollar and the pound, and I also updated my spreadsheet to account for the 2 percent increase in dividend taxation levied by the Belgian government.

That’s all for 2015 folks. I wish you all a very healthy and prosperous 2016!

Dividend income December 2015 and Merry Christmas!

Another year has almost passed, hard to believe how fast the years are flying by. I started dividend growth investing about 1.5 years ago and the portfolio is coming along quite nicely.

There have been some ups and downs recently, a lot of stocks in my portfolio have done really well but unfortunately, the overall performance has been dragged down by my the performance of my energy & mining related stocks. Earlier this month the big dividend cut from Kinder Morgan was quite a disappointment, and it looks like a dividend cut from BHP Billiton is around the corner too.

Here’s an overview of this month’s dividend income:

• SABMiller: 3.98EUR
• Unilever: 16.90EUR
• Coca-Cola: 9.90EUR
• McDonalds: 5.34EUR
• Royal Dutch Shell: 74.77EUR

In total, that’s 110.89EUR in dividend income for December 2015.

Next week I’ll decide which stock I’ll add this month. Perhaps it will be one of the stocks I recently wrote about at Seeking Alpha, I’m particularly interested in adding some more healthcare stocks to my portfolio, maybe Novartis although Sanofi looks a bit cheaper right now. Both stocks have nice strings of dividend increases.

Alternatively, I’m also interested in more consumer goods stocks. I’d love to buy some Nestlé but the 35% dividend tax is a big bummer, I’m also quite stoked about L’Oréal but that stock is a bit too richly valued for me right now. PZ Cussons offers a fairly interesting entry point right now but I’m also keen on adding more shares to my Diageo position! Always hard to make a choice, or perhaps I should split the money over two positions this month as I still have some free trades with my broker.

What stocks are you planning to buy?

Merry Christmas everyone!