Things had been silent since early September with regards to Portfolio transactions for me.  However, that changed late last month with a sale.  In addition, the sale resulted in the departure of one of my holdings.  I alluded to this transaction in my latest Portfolio Thoughts post just a few days ago.

In that post I said… it was a stock I liked and could see owning again, but “I had another stock in the same sector & industry and thought the near-term prospects might not be the best for those stocks, and thus lightened up in that area for now.”

The stock that I sold was Zions Bancorp. (ZION), a regional bank in the western U.S., headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.  ZION was a fairly recent addition to my Portfolio, too.

ZION

I first acquired ZION this past June.  At the time, I noted revenues and income moving up for the company, as well as strong dividend growth over the past 5 years.  That strong dividend continued in July when ZION announced a 13.33% raise.  I invested enough to purchase 60 shares.

I considered my initial ZION stake to be about half a full position with the idea of adding to the position over time.

If you recall, I added another regional bank to my Portfolio at the same time – Chemical Financial (CHFC), now TCF Financial (TCF) after a merger of equals.

My initial TCF position was larger than my initial ZION position, then a subsequent addition to TCF made the difference even bigger.

Now move to the present.  With interest rates slated to be cut one or two more times this year, near-term regional bank expectations were challenged, as the lower interest rates suggest smaller net interest income moving forward.  So, I thought I’d reduce my exposure to the industry.  With ZION being the smaller position, trading for a price that would mean a small profit, and ZION having an upcoming earnings release on the table that could move the stock price, I decided to make ZION the choice.  If the stock tumbled due to earnings news, I could always buy it back at a lower price.

Well, as it turned out, ZION had a decent earnings report and the stock popped up a bit.  Bad timing on my part.  Not all is lost though.  Let’s see what happens with ZION over the next couple of quarters.  I may get my chance to re-establish my position for less than my sale price.

Anyway, let’s check out the sale details…

On 10/21/19, I sold all 60.495 shares at $45.655/share, for a total of $2,759.84 after my commission and SEC fee.

With the sale, I realized a short-term capital gain of $84.44.  I only held ZION long enough to collect one dividend of $20.40.

The ZION sale results in a reduction of $82.27 in annual forward dividend income.  It’s no fun to see this income reduction, but I imagine it won’t be long before I invest the sale proceeds into another stock (perhaps a stock already in my Portfolio) and I’ll recoup most, if not all or more of that dividend income.

I won’t rule out owning ZION again in the future.  I still like the company and its longer-term prospects.

With the ZION sale, the number of stocks in my Portfolio falls to 46.

Have you sold any stocks recently?  Was this done to eliminate poor performers, for diversification purposes, or perhaps some other reason?