Portfolio - Jul 2014

I am lagging in schedule for my semi-annual portfolio reporting so I am trying to catch up a bit today. I have been on vacation in July and there has been a change at work which required some more organizational work than usual. I was asked quite spontaneously to join our New York office to help out a bit for the next 2 months. I flew over last week and now live in a furnished apartment in Midtown Manhattan, not far away from Central Park where I will be able to enjoy summer and early spring in THE capital of the Western world. Life is treating me well at the moment!

Apart from the changes at work, this year has been rather quiet so far in terms of portfolio evolution and dividend investments. As I still believe in a more anti-cyclical investment approach, and not so much in a pure dollar cost-averaging (at all costs), I have been rather cautious so far. I missed the biggest part of the stock market rally, but also didn’t have that much funds to invest in 2011/12 since it’s not too long ago that I have just started my working life. 

The first half of the year went by very fast and there has been only P&G and Glaxo which were added to the portfolio in June and July respectively. This is my portfolio as per 31 July 2014:

The portfolio is doing pretty well at the moment and reached a gain in market value of ca. 15% before the recent correction. As per end of July, I’m 9% or EUR 1,058 ahead. On a stock-by-stock basis, Deutsche Post (+74%) is leading in terms of capital appreciation, followed by Royal Dutch Shell (+24%) and Realty (+11%).

Overall portfolio yield hasn’t changed much. It still stands at around 6% which represents my portfolio's target yield. I realized that I have accumulated quite a few positions which return more than 5.50% yield. In general, I believe this is a very attractive yield as entry price for a blue chip.

Since my last post in January, I reduced my position in E.on as the company is struggling a bit at the moment. I sold 30 stocks at a price of EUR 15 and incurred a negligible loss. It didn’t make sense to have my largest portfolio holding in E.on and that’s basically the only reason for that move.

Hopefully, the market correction will continue. This would allow me to buy into more positions. AT&T, HCP, and Capitamall are all stocks on my watchlist which are currently close to a 5.50% yield. Based on 2-3 more additions, I would be getting close to an estimated annual dividend income of EUR 800. Above that threshold, 25% German withholding tax will come into play and reduce dividend return.

Let’s see if more buying opportunities will arise in the coming weeks.