The market jumped back up and now it’s time to breakdown my entire $30,000 Stock Portfolio! I have a self-directed brokerage account with Ally. Meaning I have complete control over what and how I invest my money. My overall goal is for the portfolio to function as a long-term dividend account that generates around $2,000 per month. With my current diversification strategy, that would mean about a $600,000 stock portfolio earning an average of 4% on dividends a year.
I first started investing with stocks way back in the summer of 2013 before Ally took over Trade King. I invested $250 dollars and bought shares with Ford (F), Dolan Company (DM), and Big 5 Sporting Goods (BGFV). I experienced my first loss the next year when Dolan Company went down the drain… I lost basically all the money I had invested in the company, which was only about $40. But the dividends kept trickling in and I kept adding little bits of money and reinvesting. By the end of 2017 I had about $1,500 in my portfolio, and I was ALL IN with investing. I started dumping money into my account (like big time)! I have invested a total of $24,460 into my account and as of December 7, 2021, my balance was $30,097 with an additional $71 in cash ready to go!
Before we jump into individual stocks, I want to mention my diversification strategy. Right now, my portfolio is broken-down by the sectors like this –
I try and stay close to this breakdown with my investing decisions, and I track my portfolio and all my finances in excel spreadsheets. This is what the main overview of my portfolio looks like –
This lets me see the big picture of where my portfolio is. I can see the value of each sector and how close it is to hitting my target breakdown. That lets me easily decide what area I need to invest more money in, to balance it out. The value’s keep adjusting as the market moves up and down and as I reinvest more money. I use a simple formula that keeps the actual percent of each sector up to date based on the current value of my entire portfolio. (This data updates automatically with excels ‘stocks queries’) Based on this setup, I know my next purchases will come from the Real Estate, Consumer Staples, Health Care or Energy sectors.
Also in the overview tab, I can also see the big picture of my dividends. It’s broken down by month and by each sector. I can easily see that the real estate sector, accounts for 30% of my total dividends. I can also see the monthly average is $86 in dividends and that I should earn $1,036 in dividends in the next 12 months! As most dividends are paid quarterly and companies pay out on different days and months, I don’t worry too much about the slight variations’ month to month with dividends.
Being able to see the big picture is so important! But, seeing each sector and individual stock broken-down is also just as important. It’s like eating your meal and planning your next meal at the same time. So if I move to the individual sector tabs in my spreadsheet, I can take a deeper look at each sector and each stock within that sector.
Let’s look at Finance, which makes up 25% of my entire portfolio. All my sectors are broken down with target goals for each stock. I can track the current value of each stock and how much money I spent purchasing it. This allows me to see if I’ve gained or lost money. Look at Ellington Financial Inc (EFC), at the bottom. I don’t anticipate holding onto this stock for a long time, so it is not included in my target goals for the finance sector.
I am hanging on to Ellington Financial Inc (EFC) because it pays a monthly dividend of $0.14 a share which is just over $90 a year and, its only down $35. So for right now, its staying put but, the company is not on my long term list. (That could change in the future.) I should mention I am a very visual person so having a dividend breakdown in each sector helps me to understand where and when my dividends are coming in. Also, each of the sector tabs link into the main overview tab so all the data works together with as minimal maintenance as possible.
My portfolio breakdown is primarily a present and future thinking device. I use a different excel sheet to track my past earnings and history. I call this my activity log. I can look up any past transitions or trades that I have made. I simply pull the report from Ally, my brokerage, every month and pass along the data. I color-code it so I can visually understand what is going on better.
I also calculate my swing and day trading earnings in this tab as well. I let excel do the math for me and I just keep plugging in the data every month!
But just having a log of trades and dividends makes it hard to visualize what the bigger picture is month to month and even year to year. So, here is what my overview tab looks like in this excel sheet.
To keep it simple we will just look at this from the past year and not all the way back to 2013. Less is sometimes more! I use a table to track my monthly swing and day trades, and how much money I made from dividends. I also track the balance of my portfolio and what kind of a return I earned each month. (I pull the balance monthly in a report from Ally and save that in its own excel sheet.)
I also have a simple graph that shows my portfolio growth for the year which helps keep me motivated!
And another graph that breaks down my monthly dividends… because I can!
Then… I go full nerd status! I have individual tabs for each stock that I hold that breaks down the dividends and transactions I’ve made. This allows me to visualize how the stock and dividend is holding up. I focus on companies that continually raise their dividends overtime. We can see with Bank Of America (BAC), the dividend increased from $0.18 to $0.21 a share this year, yay! I can also let excel calculate how much I have invested in the stock and what a breakeven amount would be for me to sell at this exact moment. (That’s not at all necessary, just something the nerd in me likes looking at!)
Speaking of individual stocks, its time for the total transparency! Right now, I am invested into 61 different stocks spread out through the various sectors. Apple (AAPL) holds the biggest percentage of my portfolio at just over 9%. With second place going to Costco (COST) and third to New York Mortgage Trust (NYMT) with 5.4% and 5.2% respectively. I’ve seen about 16.1% growth this year with my strategy.
Now, I am not saying to follow my lead and invest in every single one of these stocks with this specific strategy. This information is just to help educate you on what my personal portfolio looks like. People are not transparent about money, and I want to help people understand finances. This strategy is not for everyone. For most people, I would say stick to mutual funds, ETF’s and target date funds so you don’t have to do the manual labor of rebalancing and reinvesting your money for years and years. I just personally love getting my fingers into the market and having fun with my nerdy side. So, I hope you learned something, and you keep investing towards your future in whatever way that looks like for you!
© EuduringFinances, 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Related Posts –
3 thoughts on “Breaking Down My Entire $30,000 Stock Portfolio – December 2021”
Comments are closed.