In the past two weeks I have made three stock buys, which is a bit more than the usual month’s 1-2 buys. But I saved my pennies since my last buy, so I could do it.
First, I bought an additional 100 shares of CODI (Compass Diversified Holdings) at $17.45 per share. While my timing of this buy could have been better, it’s still a relative bargain being slightly below its 52-week average of $17.70 per share (the average of $15.90 (52-week low) and $19.50 (52-week high)). This buy brings my total shares of CODI to 400 and adds $36.00 per quarter (or $12.00 per month) to my projected average monthly dividend income.
Next, I bought 9 shares of CLM (Cornerstone Strategic Value fund) at $15.86 per share. It’s a small, almost trivial buy, but I wanted to have the total number of shares up from 191 to a nice round 200. Thanks to its crazy high dividend yield of 17.6%, even these paltry 9 shares adds $2.09 to my monthly dividend income.
Finally, I bought 150 shares of FGB (First Trust Specialty Finance and Financial Opportunities Fund) at $7.2512 per share for a total of 750 shares of FGB. Like my CODI buy, I got it at just a hair below its 52-week average of $7.255 (the average of $6.08 (52-week low) and $8.43 (52-week high)). This stock buy will add $26.25 per quarter (or $8.75 per month) to my projected average monthly dividend income.
Thanks to these three stock buys, my projected monthly dividend income has increased by $22.84 to $833.58. That means I just met (and barely exceeded) my 2017 goal of having a projected monthly dividend income of $833.33 (or $10,000 per year)! Yeah!! <fist pump> It’s so awesome to reach my goal just 10 days into the second half of the year which gives me quite a bit of wiggle room for further investing and some experimentation along the way. What will I do for the rest of the year? I’m not certain, but I am considering buying into proven dividend growth stocks as a way to mitigate future dividend cuts. This will, of course, slow the growth rate of my dividend income but it should help to preserve dividend income.
Interesting pickup with CLM, usually the market figures there’s going to be a dividend cut when the yield gets that crazy, any worries on having that happen and seeing the stock take a steep haircut?
CLM (formerly Cornerstone Progressive Return Fund (CFP)) has an interesting history. When it was CFP, I bought up 1000 shares from 2010-2011. From 2011-2014 it steadily cut its dividend, and then in December 2014, it did a 4:1 reverse split (making my 1000 shares into 250) followed by a slight dividend cut. In July 2015, CFP merged with CFM, converting my 250 shares of CFP to 191 shares of CLM with a monthly dividend of 36.8 cents per share. Since then the dividend has slowly been reduced to the current 23.26 cents per share.
With my latest buy, my effective yield is now 8.01% (based on $558.24 total estimated annual dividend payout and total CFP/CLM investment of $6967.76). Despite the dividend cuts over the years, that’s still a pretty good yield, but nothing to rave about since my typical stock buy yields around 9-10%. The only reason the yield is so insanely high right now is because the stock price has fallen so far. Will the dividend be cut in the future? Given its history, clearly it’s a question of “when” and “how much” and not “if” it will be cut. Hopefully the next cut will only be a slight trim. The only reason I’m still holding on to CLM is because the 8.01% yield still makes it worth holding, but if that yields falls to less than 5% then I will probably dump CLM and invest elsewhere.