Again, like in June, I decided to sell off a low-yielding dividend stock to finance the purchase of higher-yielding dividend stocks and take home a little cash. This strategy serves to help offset the damage from the various dividends cuts my portfolio suffered earlier this year.
In late July I sold off my remaining 215 shares of BNY Mellon Municipal Income, Inc. (DMF) at $9.00 per share. Using the cash from that sale, during the first week of August I bought 25 shares of Cornerstone Strategic Value Fund, Inc. (CLM) at $11.84 per share, 35 shares of Tekla Life Sciences (HQL) at $16.30 per share, and 100 shares of Pennant Park Investment Corporation (PNNT) for $6.50 per share. The remaining cash from the DMF sale was pocketed to help cover some upcoming personal expenses.
Hindsight is always 20:20 of course, and I should have waited to sell off DMF as it continued its upward trend and peaked at $9.36 in early August. Oh well, if I had the gift of prognostication then I would have been rich a long time ago.
On a more positive note, thanks to these stock buys, my projected average monthly dividend income rose from $875.54 to $883.46 (+$7.92). Not exactly a huge increase, but it does help make up for the damage from the earlier dividend cuts.
Overall, I think this was a good move but only time will reveal the wisdom of these trades.
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