1 Sale = 3 Purchases

I sold half of my holdings in WMT and purchased CVX, TCAP and UHT this month.  This will help my dividend income stream while providing additional diversification in the portfolio.

WMT: I set a personal price target of $68.50 for WMT and as it stands, has been overvalued for a bit.  With the release of their most recent earnings, I knew stock prices would decline if it didn't beat the 'stock analysts' expectations, so I had to be proactive and sell.  Seeing a yield of 2.15% didn't slow me down either...

TCAP = Triangle Capital has a great management team and if you visit Pulling ourselves up financially you can see a good fellow blogger's review of the company.  Using my dividend investing strategy, TCAP had an RRR value of 10.05 at time of purchase.

CVX = In my opinion this stock is way under-valued.  With a 26% payout, there is lots of room for the dividend to grow over the years.  The RRR value was 11.88.

UHT = a REIT that deals with hospitals and other medical facilities, this great dividend play had a yield around 5.75% and an RRR value of 14.50

In case you didn't know, the RRR is simply pairing up the payout ratios with the dividends themselves to measure the "Risk Reward Ratio".  You can learn more about the strategy at here on my blog.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial planner, advisor, or accountant. The financial actions mentioned were only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Dividend Investing and Politics - How will it affect you?

It was recently announced that Mitt Romney's Vice President pick is Paul Ryan.  For those who don't know, Paul Ryan places a HUGE emphasis on fixing our country's fiscal crisis.  If elected, 2 major changes to our tax code could take place and have great impacts on our investing strategies.


1)Ryan "promotes saving by eliminating taxes on interest, capital gains, and dividends; also eliminates the death tax." He believes that double-taxation on the American people is unfair.  Period.

2)Ryan "wishes to replace the corporate income tax – currently the second highest in the industrialized world – with a border-adjustable business consumption tax of 8.5 percent. This new rate is roughly half that of the rest of the industrialized world."

What impact would this have on the way we invest?  Let me dwell on the first point.  No taxes on dividends?  Awesome- more money we can keep and continually re-invest for greater compounding returns.  Not capital gains taxes?  Great when stocks go up we can sell and keep all profits and invest into stocks with lower p/e ratios or discounted stocks etc.  We would also be able to sell our rental properties and use all of the profits to invest in cheaper rentals as well, without worrying about our profits being taken by the government.

Now with the second point... Current corporate tax rates sit around 39.2%, putting the United States rate just below Japans 39.7%.  Now imagine how much more profitable companies can be if they had their tax rates slashed by over 30%...  This provides a lot more room for growth of our dividends and capital, which again, wouldn't be taxed.   =)


If Romney and Ryan make it to the white house, how do you think your investment strategy will change?  If Obama and Biden are re-elected, will your strategy change as well?

My Secret Cash Machine

Over the past few months, I have been developing a way to supplement my dividend purchases through means other than rental property cashflows.  This now generates 97% passive income and has been a great way to help diversify my income stream.

My initial investment was 60$ which was really not intended to be an investment at all.  It was more like an entertainment expense.  I now generate $5-10 steadily (minimum) per week here, which may not seem like much, but when re-invested for dividend stocks and compounded over time, this could be big, as items sell from $1.25 to $250.00

Problems:  The game company charges a 15% sale fee for every item.  My money is then sent to an account with the company that can only be used to buy their products, and never withdrawn. So when I choose to move the proceeds of each sale to my paypal account, the company charges an additional $1.... If caught using a robot my account will be banned permanently.  The "97%" is a problem because 3% of the time I need to look at my robot's findings and determine how valuable each item is and whether it would result in a successful sale.  I prefer 100% passive income but this is close enough.

I can only have 10 auctions up at once, many of which may not sell.  This of course is another problem...  Technically the electricity usage and the fee for having internet service will eat up a lot of the income too, but since I travel for a living the hotels always have this provided =)

Opportunities: I could use my robot for much longer and generate more potential income, but I don't want to put my account at risk too much for the moment.  I could also buy 10 accounts and run 10 robots simultaneously, but this would probably put a lot of stress on my hardware.  And as a last opportunity I can play the game manually like a normal person and have fun beating up on monsters and finding my own goodies.  This is a great way to keep my entertainment expenses down to a minimum and possibly make some legitimate cash on the side.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial planner, advisor, or accountant. The financial actions mentioned were only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Additional Disclaimer: Cheating is against the video game company's EULA and will result in a permanent ban on your account.

Dividend Investing - Month 5

July was a great month for dividend investing.  The Fed has just announced that the economy is sluggish, with unemployment being stuck at 8+% now for quite some time (this of course was no surprise). They reassured the media that interest rates will remain near 0% through 2014, which in my opinion further reduces risk in bonds and REIT stocks.

Speaking of REITs, RSO had a conference call that provided positive information for investors.  The company has maintained a .5% vacancy rate and has increased profits and net income for the recent quarter, further justifying the sustainability of their great dividend.

Overall the monthly dividend is now sitting at $38.08 per month and climbing.  A very welcome 7.63% increase over the previous month.

 Disclaimer: I am not a financial planner, advisor, or accountant. The financial actions mentioned were only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.