August is in the rear view mirror, it continued the upward trajectory from July’s momentum but reversed coarse at the midpoint of the month. The Dow closed the month at 31,510.43 and the S&P finished at 3,955 both dropped -3.8%. Everything was going along smoothly until the Fed meeting and subsequent statement from Chairman Powell that reiterated the stance of raising interest rates to curve inflation. While recent CPI numbers show a decline in inflation, investors speculated the increases might slow down or even stop. That will not be the case and it sent Wall Street in a downward spiral.
My Dividend portfolio dropped -3.26% for the month of August, slightly better than the -3.8% drop in the overall market. I received $170.43 in dividend payments from 9 companies with the largest payout coming from Verizon (VZ) :
you can check my dividend payout history here .
During the month I added to my positions in AFL , BEN , JPM , TSCO , V , AOS and GOOG a total of $1098.85 going towards my dividend payers boosting my dividends by $22.98. That brings my yearly forward dividend payout to $4561.63
I also added 5 shares of Google for $585.61 at an average cost of $117.12 per share as part of my growth positions.
August is a slow month for my current holdings in the dividend increase world. I had zero increases but September will be a different story with 7 to 8 potential raises.
My Options income for August fell off but I was away for 10 days to end the month, I ended the month with $849 of premiums collected. With the market reversing direction I have some assigned positions that I will have to either wait for a climb to profitability or write OTM calls and risk being assigned at a loss. It’s not a huge part of my portfolio as I set aside $5K to play with and I’m comfortable waiting. I’m up to $3543 in premiums collected for the year but in reality it’s been 4+ months.
How did the month of August treat your investments? share your thoughts in the comment area below.