The end of another month of dividends has arrived so here’s a brief summary of my monthly dividend income:
August 2017 dividend income:
- Bristol-Myers Squibb: 4.49EUR
- YUM! Brands: 2.21EUR
- Omega Healthcare Investors: 8.04EUR
- Kinder Morgan: 3.89EUR
- Colgate-Palmolive: 3.19EUR
- Novo Nordisk: 29.15EUR
Overall that’s just 50.97EUR in after-taxes dividend income this month, making it one of my lowest dividend income months of the year.
Dividend increases:
- BHP: +7.5% sequentially
- Warehouses De Pauw: Increased its dividend target by another 1.12%
- Diageo: +5.19%
- Hershey: +6.15%
- South32: +640% year-over-year (not a typo!)
New buys
There are still several companies I’d like to own a piece of but this month I added more shares of Gilead (GILD).
One Up On Wall Street – Peter Lych
So I finally finished my copy of One Up On Wall Street. I started reading this book about a year ago, it’s one of those investing books that’s often high on everyone’s recommendation list. Overall it offers some nice insights and tips but I’m not particularly fond of it. The first edition of this book was released in 1989 and it’s really showing its age.
It could really use an update as a lot of the examples and ideas he shares are now dated. I guess the fact that I didn’t read it in one go is a good indicator that I don’t think this is a must-read book. It’s too dated, too repetitive and I feel like most of the interesting things in this book can be condensed into an article of a few thousands of words.
Dividends are Coming 
Nice job for August. High months/low months, when put into perspective, are all good as it’s passive income hitting your account. Who wouldn’t want that? Similar names and I like the GILD buy too. Thanks for sharing.
LikeLike
Thanks for stopping by, there’s indeed a lot of variance between the low and the high months. This will probably be my last purchase of Gilead for the time being, I now consider it a full position for my portfolio.
LikeLike
Congrats on the income. Never read that book but have read some finance books that are dated. Definately not good books. Keep it up every purchase adds to next quarters dividends.
LikeLike
Thanks.
I’m currently reading The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success. I like that book a lot better.
LikeLike
DC –
Nice! Almost 51 in euro is impressive and looking forward to you crushing it going forward. Nice dividend increases as well.
-Lanny
LikeLike
Thanks DD!
LikeLike
50Eur on a low month is great! Keep it up.
Out of curiousity, how do you keep up with knowing all your dividend increases monthly?
LikeLike
I use a combination of methods. First, I keep a spreadsheet where I list all my purchases. This file also contains a dividend calendar with the expected dividend payout dates of my stocks and there’s also a tab where I list the month or months when the company usually makes its dividend increase announcements.
Seeking Alpha’s stock alerts are good for keeping track of breaking news, they send out e-mail alerts about important announcements or rumors. This is mainly US-oriented so not ideal to track dividend announcements from European companies.
Last but not least, I also usually browse company earnings releases when they come out. Most companies announce their dividend increases together with an earnings release.
LikeLike
Thanks for your quick and complete answer, helps 😉
LikeLike
Not so bad for the lowest month of the year! It’s nice to see that you keep on adding to your portfolio as well.
“One up on Wall Street” was one of the first books I read about investments. I still remember a story from this book about a guy who did not listen to his wife about some popular stockings for women (boring company) and bought some trending high-technology stocks instead. Guess how that went? Maybe it is outdated but I think that you may still use the fundamentals in today’s market.
Thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
Indeed, that’s one of Lynch’s investment stories in the book. There’s some solid advice in the book, generally I like reading about the past but in this case, I felt the book was too antiquated and too autobiographic. He speaks from a point of view of a professional money manager in the 70/80s and most of the book consists of personal stories.
That was a time when it was a lot harder for ordinary people to research companies than it is now, these days a wealth of information is just a couple of clicks away. There’s some good common-sense advice like sticking with what you know but he never really goes into the details. That’s why I felt most of the good stuff in the book can be condensed into a much shorter piece.
Perhaps had I read this book in the 90s my opinion would be entirely different. But as I was approaching the final pages of this book a quote I had read on Twitter popped into my mind. I’m not sure who wrote it (I think it was tweeted by Nassim Nicholas Taleb) but it was something along the lines of “most articles should be blogs and most books should be articles”.
LikeLike
Great month! Gotta love the dividend increases you also received. Congrats on seeing that income continue to grow.
Bert
LikeLiked by 1 person
A few questions, since I’m also Belgian and interested in the topic as well…
A few words on my own strategy: I try to save as much as possible, which worked fine till I got a mortgage in order ti buy property. Of the savings, I kept adding to a higher yielding savings account to build up cash, and I invested a fixed amount monthly in some actively managed funds. It works fine, gives broad exposure to regions or sectors, but total fees are rather high.
Furthermore, I’m trying to use some of the hoarded cash wisely in order to build up a stock portfolio. I did add etf’s at first but as you say, they’re super boring so I threw them out again.
However, I do favour the idea of being well diversified, hence my stock portfolio is being built up with Holding compagnies. Any thoughts on those? Some structural positions in my portfolio are for example Quest for Growth, Sofina, Tubize and Hal trust.
Second question: why all the foreign (usd) assets? Their dividend incomes are being taxed into oblivion…
Interesting blog, will keep following it…
LikeLike
Hi, thanks for joining the blog.
About the holding companies, I don’t really have an opinion about them.They can be good for getting a lot of diversification but just like the ETFs the holdings don’t really peak my interest as much as shares of regular companies. They can be a good buy if you can get them at a decent price, I’ve just never considered a holding for my portfolio. I think there’s no single investment strategy that fits everyone’s personality.
About the second question, one of the problems with being a Belgian investor is that the home market is very small. So to get diversification I need to buy a lot of foreign stocks. Some of these are subject to double taxation (like most US stocks) while others aren’t (the UK stocks). The extra taxation is a pain in the ass but overall I think it’s still worth it if the expected total return is OK. This is also one of the reasons I don’t shy away from stocks that have a very low dividend yield.
LikeLike