This month’s Portfolio Thoughts post may be a bit shorter than normal. With my Monthly Options Income post coming so late this month, and the Monthly Dividend Income post just a few days away, I wasn’t left much time for this one. However, let’s see what I can muster up.
As usual, I’ll go over my purchases & sales from this past month, see what price movement there’s been for my Portfolio holdings, and take a look at the stocks I’ve got on my watchlist.
Mixed in can be changes I’m contemplating to improve the Portfolio. This might be thoughts about stocks I want to overweight or underweight, or stocks I wish to add or remove.
Transactions
Well, my thought the last couple of months that transactions might slow down for the remainder of the year held true this month, as I have no transactions to report.
The number of stocks in the Portfolio remains at 41.
Price Movement
The market continued to drift higher this past month, and my Portfolio followed. Make that an increase in value for 4 straight months.
However, there were no standouts this month that powered the Portfolio with gains of 10% or more. I can’t recall the last time that happened, as it seems there’s always at least one stellar performer.
A few stocks that recorded gains well above 5% for the month included: Qualcomm (QCOM), Union Pacific (UNP), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Illinois Tool Works (ITW), Lowe’s Companies (LOW), and Starbucks (SBUX).
As for my Portfolio stocks on the decline, I had only one fall 10%, and it was almost 10% exactly. That stock was Gentex (GNTX). I can’t recall any specific news that led to the decline.
A couple other notable decliners included Abbvie (ABBV) and Texas Instruments (TXN).
More up than down this month though, and that led to positive results overall – hard not to like that.
Watch List
Even though I may not be expecting to make many purchases for the rest of the year, it still pays to have a watchlist at the ready. You never know when the opportunity to initiate a new position or add to an existing one will be too good to let pass by.
I’ll start with possible additions to my existing Portfolio positions…
Once again, the list from last month really hasn’t changed much. I’m still looking to add to some of my smaller positions in order to bring them up to a more desirable Portfolio weighting.
That leaves Comcast (CMCSA), TXN, and ABBV on the watchlist. SBUX and Hershey (HSY) were part of this list last month, but they have moved far enough away from my buy level that I’m removing them from the watchlist for now.
CMCSA won the auction for Sky and the market feels they bid too much. This has driven down the stock price a little and makes a purchase more interesting. I still feel like the market needs to digest this some more, so I’ll probably remain on the sideline for now. However, if CMCSA continues to move down in price, holding off on adding to my existing position may become difficult.
I’ve been waiting for TXN to trade below $100 before I add some shares. The stock traded in the $102 range this month, but I’m remaining patient. If the tech sector or the market as a whole pulls back, I suspect I’ll get my chance to add.
ABBV shares pulled back recently after California’s insurance commissioner alleged that ABBV gave illegal kickbacks to healthcare providers to prescribe its Humira rheumatoid arthritis drug. I would like to see the price of ABBV be a bit lower before I contemplate adding some shares. A price in the mid-to-high $80s might do the trick.
As for non-Portfolio stocks that I’m watching…
I’ve continued to watch several big names over the past 2-3 months, including General Dynamics (GD), Cummins (CMI), 3M (MMM), FedEx (FDX) and Boeing (BA).
Of these, at current prices, FDX interests me the most. A recent earnings report knocked FDX’s stock price down, but I’d like to see it trade below $230 before considering a purchase.
One new stock that I’m watching, which I mentioned in my most recent Monthly Options Income post, is residential home builder, D.R. Horton (DHI). Adding below $41 is an option for me… literally!
Thoughts?
What portfolio changes are you interested in making? Or are you happy with where you stand? Please share your thoughts!
Interesting review again ED, always helpful to see you analyzing your portfolio.
October is nearly upon us and I’m looking at adding to my ED position (ha!), IRM or maybe GIS. ITs not easy pickings at the moment for me. Abbv is already my second largest position next to T so I’m looking at other sectors. I’m also open to new positions.
Ha, indeed, Mr. Robot! I always wondered if I should add ED to my Portfolio. It would seem appropriate. 🙂
Stay patient on the purchases… something will present itself soon enough, I’m sure.
Nice to see that the account value has continued to move upwards despite there not being any standout performers.
This may be a really dumb question, but how are you monitoring your monthly stock performance. I’ve looked in my brokerage account, which is Fidelity, and I am not finding any reporting on all holdings that let me view the performance over the last month, etc. It looks like I would have to manually lookup the price as of the first of the month and then the last of the month and calculate the rate. Is that what you’re doing or does your broker provide this performance snapshot?
Thanks for sharing your watch list as well, I am starting to review my holdings to determine where I will be focusing on during October. I didn’t see a lot of buying opportunities for my holdings in September so it has been fairly quiet.
It’s all manual, DivvyDad. I wish I could just look up the percentage moves, but I don’t do it on a monthly calendar basis, but rather for the dates between my posts. Usually, I can just eyeball the before and after prices and come within a percent or so of the gain/loss. Thanks to your question, I now have an idea on how to streamline it a bit for next month. It’s nothing ingenious… I’ll let you know how it works out.
It seems like the online brokers should provide more robust performance metrics for our portfolios. I might have to make a recommendation to Fidelity. In the meantime, I might add a tab to my spreadsheet to capture the price of every holding at the close of each month. Then I can use that as part of my performance updates to look at month to month, quarter to quarter, etc.
Nice thoughts mate, I’ve been waiting for ABBV to hit mid to high eighties too, can’t wait to pull the trigger on such a wonderful company. Looking forward to your September income report!
DI
Thanks, DI. I’m tallying up the Sept. dividends as we speak. As always, I’ll be excited to share the details.
Adding a few ABBV shares in the upper $80s would be nice. However, if ABBV moves up I won’t be too sad, as I do already hold a little over 65 shares.