Ok, here's my yearly update. I only included the stocks I bought last year. The ones I purchased at the beginning of this year are doing fine but nothing worth mentioning since it's only been a couple months.

I did my calculations by hand because either Vanguard doesn't offer me that ability or I'm just not utilizing the website fully. All the same, in order to separate everything out to see how my money is being earned I did the following math.

For dividend gains, I simply divided the difference between my initial investment and total cost by the initial investment. Total cost being the sum of my initial investment plus any dividends earned since I reinvest them.

For capital gains, I divided the difference between current value and total cost by total cost.

For overall gains, I divided the difference between current value and initial investment by the initial investment.

Without further ado, here are the results from my first year.

KO Div 3.79% Cap 23.15% Total 27.8%
KMP Div 6.49% Cap 9.94% Total 17.1%
OXY Div 2.25% Cap -7.73% Total -5.65%
SO Div 4.44% Cap 3.85% Total 8.4%
WFM Div 3.38% Cap 23.3% Total 27.5%

Averages Div 4.07% Cap 10.5% Total 15.03%

I'm happy :D I'm also pleased to see my OXY starting to climb back towards the surface. My Fidelity managed 401k has an 11% IRR and that doesn't include the company match which is fantastically free money. My Vanguard managed mutual fund I'm honestly not sure on but it's going up. So yeah, I'm happy and dividend investing is clearly working for me. MY ESPP is flat out amazing right now too.

Aren't you glad you started this thread!!! LOL

Yes! :D Thanks again, Greg.

I've kept about 3MM in cash WAITING for "the pullback" to jump in and do some selective buying... Obviously that hasn't happened YET.... and may not. That's the stock market. It never does what you think or want it to do. We're actually just spectators along for the ride. Sometimes you're just sitting on your hands. So 3MM employees are currently on vacation.

I write this -- because a car dealer will tell you that the money is "made on the buy - not on the sale" side. Meaning that if he buys a car right --- that's probably where the best profit is. I'm sitting with the employees on vacation hoping that when they come back to work -- I will have a chance to make a little gain buying "right".

I DO NOT RECOMMEND this kind of practice for normal investors... and or EVER for 401's and IRA's etc. I'm basically a professional money manager (for my own funds) and have been doing this for some 30 years. I eat and sleep this on a daily basis. The reason for writing this post is to show just how wrong (so far) I've been. Remember too, that this is a very small portion of what I'm investing. It was cash that was parked in a couple cash cows but at least it WAS earning money even though it wasn't really "invested".

Still the best thread on Lat-g!!

Did anyone see that the US government seized assets of bitcoin??

I checked the price and it was trading at $125 and since I'm traveling back from
The V8 Supercar races in Austin I can't cut and paste the article
Using my phone.



http://www.cnbc.com/id/100750803

Article form 1959
 

This was recommended to me.. I am reading it now so I thought i would pass it on... Not positive its 100% relevant as its over 50... :twak:

http://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/filea...959_Gordon.pdf

DHS didn't seize any bitcoins, the just closed an exchange here in the US. This is like killing one ant and hoping the whole colony dies. As long as there is a need, it will be near impossible to stop it.

The price has stabilized with a slow steady increase... but still, they know what it takes to destabilize it. When central banks can create dollars out of thin air, a relatively small bitcoin market can easily be manipulated.

Since that bubble and crash didn't scare everyone off, they are using force to trying to close things down now, at least here in the states where they can.

Well personally I'd be worried about a couple of things.


#1 --- I never want to be in a pissing match with any government.


#2 --- They seized the assets of the exchange... to me that says they
may also have access to accounts - transactions - etc... which I'd be worried about if I wasn't paying income taxes on my gains. That's what they're really after.

You guys that looked around your neighborhoods and decided that Home Depot (HD) was someone you'd like to invest with.... certainly got it right. It's up what ?? Like $4 in the last two days?


I've missed two things that if I'd have followed my gut hunch --- I "wanted to" short the housing stocks just prior to the crash --- and I wanted to buy housing stocks last year (I have three buddies in the biz and they all saw good things coming). I did neither.

Home Depot and Lowes are both "housing proxies".... * Newbs * a "proxy" is a way of buying a company (stock) that is a direct beneficiary of an industry etc without actually picking a name (stock) in the industry. Think of it like buying Goodyear if you thought "car sales" were going up. You wouldn't have to pick Ford or Chevy.