The days, weeks and months seem to be flying by. I can’t believe we are heading into May already and summer will be here soon. The market started the month is a steady uptick before leveling out for the last 2 weeks as companies began to report earnings. We continue to have some banks, mostly regional, with liquidity issues. They poured too many assets into long term bonds and although in the long term the value will still be there, in the short term if they need to cash them in they are in trouble. The quick rate increases over the last year have given new bonds an appealing rate that hasn’t been seen in some time now making the older bonds the banks hold harder to sell on the secondary market. With the recent bank runs it causing banks to liquidate their bonds at a loss. If it was a small amount they could weather the storm, but when hysteria kicks in and a bank run ensues the bank collapses.
People need to remember chartered banks are FDIC insured. Your money is safe up to $250,000 per social security number. If structured correctly you can have up to $750,000 at a single bank and be completely covered by FDIC insurance *if your married. You and your spouse have separate accounts each with $250K in coverage and a joint account with an additional $250K. The first issue – a majority of people will never need this much coverage. The second issue – why would you have that much sitting around in cash! Having that much cash in a bank is hurting your financial wellbeing. Keep an emergency fund with 6 months of living expenses, invest the rest. You don’t need to pick individual stocks, just invest in a low cost index fund such as VOO or VTI and your are instantly diversified. Enough about banks now onto my update.
Dividends Received
April marks the start of the 2nd quarter. This month the portfolio generated $307.05 from 11 holdings and that is a 20% increase over last year and a big part of that has to do with the recent addition of 100 shares of CUBE in my wife Roth. The largest payout came from Kimberly Clark KMB with $60.16.
Monthly Purchases
My weekly ~$300 investments went into these positions:
2 Shares of ABT
1 Share of JNJ
3 Shares of UNP
1 Share of NEE
2 Shares of KR
I had some money in VTI and used it to open a position in NextEra Energy NEE purchased 80 Shares and the remainder of the funds went into 20 shares of ETF SCHD
Total invested for the month of $1127.80 adding $122.99 PADI.
Dividend Increases
I had two of my holdings announce a dividend increase.
Proctor & Gamble PG with a modest 3% bump and now pays $0.9407 per quarter.
Johnson & Johnson JNJ chugging along with a 5.31% raise which brings it’s quarterly payout to $1.19
Options Income
For April I generated a total of $579.853 in options premiums and I invested that into:
6 Shares of O
Which brings in an additional $18.36 in PADI.
Year to date I have generated $2278 in premiums on $25,000 in capital. A 9% return on my money, not to mention those premiums then get reinvested into my portfolio boosting the return even higher. The month closed out with a Put being assigned ATVI and one Call opened in SBUX.
Wrapping it up!
We increased PADI by $141.35 a 2.52% increase from the previous month. My projected PADI stands at $5741.22 or $478 a month. I’m shooting for $6,000 by years end which should be attainable at the current pace.
How have your investments done so far in 2023? share your thoughts in the comment area below.