I sold off the last of my employer’s stock options last week, so I had a small windfall of cash to invest with. Using my spreadsheet to determine the optimal stocks and number of shares to buy, I had my next buys already planned out.
When I first bought CTC Media stock I had some reservations about the company because, although the balance sheet looked good, I knew dark clouds could be on the horizon. I was pleased that CTCM didn’t cut their dividend for Q1’s payout, so I bought 80 shares of CTCM at $4.24 per share on Wednesday. However, this proved to be a bad move, as the next day CTC Media announced their quarterly earnings and things aren’t good. With an overall 21% contraction of ad revenue for television media and the devaluation of the ruble, the Russian recession’s impact is being felt. There will be no dividend payout for Q2 (and probably for Q3 and Q4 as well, I guess). With a weight of 3.1% of my dividend income, this will hurt a bit.
In the long term, the Russian economy will eventually recover and CTC Media’s financials should improve, so my only long-term worry is the Russian Mass Media Law. This law restricts foreign ownership of Russian media companies and takes effect next year. I don’t know what effect it will have on small foreign investors like me. Sigh. Maybe I should just sell off most of CTCM and call this experiment in Russian stocks a learning experience and move on.
I haven’t invested much in HHY and FGB, my two most newest buys for the year, so I decided to further buy into these two stocks. I bought 250 shares of HHY at $7.97 per share, and 275 shares of FGB at $7.44 per share.
With CTCM’s eliminating its dividend (hopefully temporarily) and the expected additional dividend income from my HHY and FGB buys, my projected average monthly dividend income is $582.13. That’s quite an increase from $561.57, but not as much as I was expecting to achieve with CTCM maintaining its quarterly dividend. Sigh.
Addendum: I decided to sell off a good chunk of my total CTCM shares. I’ve sold off 220 shares of CTCM and will keep a 100 shares in reserve. Hopefully CTC Media will resume dividend payouts at some point in the future and the stock price will rise enough to offset the losses from selling the 220 shares.
