Latest Buy - Dominion Energy (D) Again.

Like i mentioned in this post when i initiated a position in Dominion Energy recently, i was hoping for D to fall to the mid to upper 70's, so that i could buy some more in order to decrease my cost basis.

Guess what - within a few days, dominion announced that they were planning to buy out the south Carolina based utility SCANA (SCG). Scana has been struggling a bit lately because of their failed nuclear plant, their stock has been lagging the overall market and has been down while the rest of the market is red hot.

The powers that be did not like this piece of news and punished Dominion's stock. Yes, this will put some pressure on dominion's cash flow for dividends, but they have put out statements confirming their commitment toward maintaining and increasing their dividends. 

The fundamentals haven't changed, moreover if they execute this correctly - this might be a good thing for the company in the long run.

With these things in mind, i doubled my initial small position in Dominion Energy at $76.7 a share. At the current dividend payout, the yield on cost is 4.01%, but since they have already established a 2018 dividend of $3.34/share - the forward yield on cost on this purchase is 4.35%.

Brings my overall cost basis down and the overall yield on cost to 4.18%. I will take that from a well run stable utility.

I will keep an eye out for D, and am open to making another small purchase if the stock falls another 5% from here.

Have you been buying anything in the relatively soft utility and REIT sector lately ?

Latest Buy - Dominion Energy Inc (D)

The utility sector has been lagging the overall market lately. One of the reasons might be the assumption that the recently passed tax reform will not help the utility sector as much as they would the other sectors.

While that might or might not be true, some of the utilities have given up some gains and as a result are off their recent lofty highs.

Latest Buy - Microsoft (MSFT)

Just recently, i wrote about how i have missed out by not investing in Microsoft.

Even though i have exposure to the stock via index funds that i hold in non-taxable accounts, i always missed out on purchasing MSFT as an individual stock.

Till now.

Dividend Increase - AT&T (T)

AT&T (T) declared a $0.50/share quarterly dividend. It is a 2% increase from the prior dividend of $0.49.

This is payable Feb 1 for shareholders on record Jan 10 (ex-dividend date Jan 9)

AT&T keeps its tradition of increasing the annual dividend by 4 cents a share (1 cent a quarter) every December. Even though the increase is small in terms of percentage, the good part is that the base this is being increased upon is well above a 5% yield.

The market meanwhile continues to go up everyday in anticipation of the tax deal. Value investors like me are both happy because existing positions are doing well, but not so happy because fair value is harder to find with every passing day in this red hot market.

Dividend Increase - W.P. Carey

W.P. Carey (WPC) declared a $1.01/share quarterly dividend.

Even though it is just a 0.5% increase from the prior quarterly dividend of $1.005, it is not bad because they have increased their dividend every quarter for a while. Forward dividend yield is at 5.77%

Apple increases dividend by 10.5 %

Apple just released their quarterly numbers, and like clockwork increased their dividend. I was expecting a 20 cent per share raise, but they increased it by 24 cents. The yearly dividend is now $2.52 per share.
An over 10 % dividend raise is great considering that this is not a value stock and the stock value it self has risen over 25% just this year.

I am excited about the upcoming super cycle where they will be releasing the 10th anniversary iPhone.

Apple remains one of my best performing stock picks. Oh and did i mention they have over quarter of a trillion dollars in the bank? Their $250 billion + cash hoard is a fortune 100 company on its own. Mind boggling.

Latest Buy

I have been pretty dormant in terms of my purchases in my taxable account. My opinion is that the market is really hot, and it makes sense to wait for it to cool down before making purchases. That said - there are always companies with some transient issues and they present buying opportunities, so i am still very open to those.

This is part of my automatic 401k (my contribution + employer 3% match) buys. On March 22, i purchased -

VFIAX - $112.50
JMYAX - $309.38
Stable Value Fund - $515.62 (this is more like a money market+bond blend fund)

Total - $937.50

Approximate dividend yield on the index funds is about 2%, so this adds about $8.50 to the annual dividends received in my tax deferred account.