I’ve been slacking when it comes to posting about my recent transactions.  This post is about a Portfolio buy I made about a week into November… easily more than two weeks ago.  I have no excuse for the delay in posting.  Maybe it’s laziness… or maybe I’m just extremely busy ramping up for the holidays.  Yeah, that’s it.

Anyway, what’s important is that I’m posting about it now.  Also, there haven’t been any other moves between now and then.  So, it’s not like I have a backlog of transactions to share.

This purchase of mine will seem like a duplicate from the one I made last month… that’s because it is!  Well, except for the price difference.

This repeat buy was an addition to an existing holding… one of my smaller holdings.  Last month we checked to see if my purchase boosted the stock out of my Bottom 10.  It didn’t.  We’ll check again this time.

I bought again since the price for this stock continued to drop over this past month.  I was able to purchase more of these shares at my lowest price yet.

Let’s check out the details for my latest purchase…

 

Hershey Co. (HSY)

This is now my 3rd purchase of HSY since I established a position back in January of this year.

In my watchlist from last month, I targeted an HSY price below $178 for a further share purchase.  It didn’t take long for the stock to cross well below that level.

On 11/7/24, I bought another 3 shares of HSY at $172.00/share for a total of $516.00.  The stock was yielding 3.19% at that price.  This yield is 0.66 percentage points larger than my current Portfolio yield of 2.53%.

My HSY position grew by 10.53% with this addition, bringing my share total to 31.498 shares.  The purchase lowered my cost basis by a decent $1.42/share, to $185.45/share.

My Portfolio’s annual forward dividend income once again increased by $16.44 as a result of this purchase.

I was in the red with this position before this buy, and I remain there now.  Earnings growth for HSY has stagnated in the past year, which has led to a rising earnings payout ratio.  But I’m confident HSY will resume earnings growth soon enough – probably in 2026 after another earnings dip in 2025.  Many of the company’s financial metrics still look good, including its operating and free cash flow margins, as well as its net debt and its interest coverage.  I’ll be looking to add more HSY if the price declines further, as the stock already looks slightly undervalued to me at current levels.

With HSY being an existing holding, the number of stocks in my Portfolio remained at 58.

 

Summary

I’ve only got one Portfolio transaction for October, and it’s the same as the one I recorded in September – which is a small buy of HSY.

My buy of 3 shares translated into an investment of exactly $516 into my Portfolio.  In addition, my forward dividend income increased by a decent $16.44.

My HSY position grew by about 10.5%, and my cost basis dropped close to a buck and a half per share.

Sadly, despite the addition, my HSY position still hasn’t exited the Bottom 10 stocks of my Portfolio from a value perspective.  It grew to become my 9th smallest position at the time of my buy, but has since declined to become my 8th smallest position.  The stock stands comfortably ahead of The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) in my Portfolio value rankings, but is closely chasing UGI Corp. (UGI).

 

Do you own HSY?  What do you think of the stock presently?  Please share in the comments!