July was a strong bounce back month for 2022. With everything going on in the world… war, inflation & looming recession the first 6 months of the year has put a scare on many investors. If retirement is still years or even decades away there is no reason to panic, just keep investing as if nothing has changed. You are buying into the same stocks or funds at a discounted rate, once the market recovers your gains will be even greater. Nobody likes to see their portfolio drop in value, but unless you need that money at this very minute there is no reason to make the mistake of pulling your money out of the market.
For the month of July the Dow closed at 32,845.13 up 5.62% and the S&P closed at 4130.29 up 7.97%. Year to date the S&P is still down -13.89% and we still have a ways to go to even out, will the market continue it’s upward trend? As always it’s unpredictable, some indicators seem to show that inflation is stabilizing but it’s going to be a long time before things settle back down to the 2% range. This past week the Fed once again raise the rates by .75 to combat the high inflation, we know wait for the September meeting for their next move.
My Dividend portfolio is up 6% for the month of July. I received $207.73 in dividend payments from 9 companies with the largest payout coming from KMB :
you can check my dividend payout history here .
During the month I added to my positions in AFL , BEN , INTC , GOOG , SNA , TXN and started a position in UNP
I only had 1 position with a dividend increase this month. On July 20th BAC increased their dividend by 4.76% from .21 to .22 per quarter. It’s not much but it’s still a raise and that’s how the dividend snowball begins.
Unlike other dividend paying companies. banks have to pass a stress test in order raise the dividend for their shareholders. For the latest Stress Test results click here.
This is only my 3rd full month of Options writing, I ended the month with $1021.34 of premiums collected. That’s a 10% increase from the previous month and an 80% increase from my 1st month.
