June was certainly an unusually busy month for trades, with two sells and two buys. With all the dividend cuts my portfolio has suffered this year, I decided to sell off some low yielding (but tax-free) stock and buy stocks with higher yields. Plus I needed to tap my portfolio for some cash to cover some July expenses. I HATE selling assets to raise cash to cover expenses, but sometimes it becomes necessary to do so.
First, I sold off all 300 shares of VFL at $13.25 per share, which was used to buy 300 shares of PNNT at $6.5445 per share and 65 shares of HQL at $15.8692 per share. My timing of the stock buys wasn’t too bad. My PNNT buy at $6.445 was well below its approximate 52-week average of $7.025, and my buy of HQL’s at $15.8692 was below its 52-week average of $17.315.
Later in the month, I sold 85 shares of DMF at 8.60 per share. Considering how its 52-week high is $8.61, my timing was very good.
Overall, this series of sells and buys worked out well. It gave my projected monthly dividend income an approximately $8 boost and I got some additional cash to help cover July expenses.
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Hi DQ!
Great blog, a lot of inspiration.
Have you thought about selling puts or calls?
Like I just sold DEC 20 put on PNNT with strike price $7.5 but got premium $1.4 – yes, this is ITM (In the money), but if I will get assigned, my break-even price is $6.1, still below current $6.36 stock price
Well, obviously PNNT is not the best example of options trading, just my 2 cents
Thanks for the kind words Reinis. Options trading has always seemed like a higher order of complexity that I have never really grasped it. If the “buy low/sell high” technique is akin to checkers, then options trading is like 3D chess in comparative complexity. Dividend investing is only slightly more complex than “buy low/sell high” trading, and I’ve been comfortable with that. But perhaps I should give options trading a second look. It can’t hurt to learn something new, right?