I executed a couple of Portfolio transactions last week.  These were my first transactions in May.

Neither transaction involved a huge dollar amount, so I’d call the moves minor transactions.  It was a net investment into my Portfolio though.

I trimmed one position and used the sale proceeds and a little cash to add to a holding that’s been depressed lately.

The moves resulted in a small bump to my forward dividend income.  So, my Portfolio continues to generate an ever-increasing income stream.

Here are the details for my latest Portfolio transactions…

 

Microsoft (MSFT)

Back in mid-February, I added a single MSFT share at $408.84.  This was after the stock had a decent price drop in late January.  This buy turned out to be a bit premature though, as the stock continued to drift lower over the next couple of months.

I ended up buying a couple more shares at an even lower price in early March.  My unannounced plan after this purchase was to potentially unload the mid-February share should MSFT recover in price, leaving me with 2 shares at a lower price than the one I originally bought.

Well, with the recent surge in the share price of MSFT, I unloaded that one share at a decent profit.  Given that MSFT is an Information Technology holding, I hated making the sale, but I followed through with my plan anyway.

On 5/8/25, I sold my most expensive MSFT share at $443.01/share.  The sale proceeds were $443.00 after the $0.01 SEC fee.

At my sale price, shares of MSFT yielded 0.75%.  This is more than 2 full percentage points below my current Portfolio yield of 2.86%.

With this sale, I realized a short-term capital gain of $34.16.  However, my annual forward dividend income only dropped by $3.32.

My MSFT position was reduced by 4.63% with the sale.  I still hold 20.58 shares of MSFT, with a cost basis of $216.01/share.  This was a drop in cost basis from $224.95/share.

MSFT became my 30th largest position after the sale.  It slightly trails NextEra Energy (NEE) in my Portfolio rankings, but sits ahead of Nike (NKE) by a decent amount.

 

UnitedHealth Group (UNH)

Just a month ago, UNH was trading at $600.  Since then, the stock has lost more than a third of its value.

This was primarily due to a poor first quarter earnings report, followed by reductions in the company’s full-year earnings guidance.

While 2025 may not look too good for UNH, analysts do have earnings rebounding to ~15% growth in each of the two years that follow.  The current P/E ratio is also the lowest it’s been since the depths of the pandemic.  UNH typically trades in an overvalued state, but currently the stock looks slightly undervalued.

So, I decided to add to my position while the price looked right.  This was my first addition to my UNH position in over 4 years.

On 5/8/25, I bought 2 shares of UNH at $387.00/share, for a total cost of $774.00.  The stock yielded 2.17% at my purchase price, which is about three-quarters of a percentage point below my current Portfolio yield, but much higher than the yield of the MSFT shares I sold.  The yield also tops UNH’s 5-yr. average yield of 1.42% by three-quarters of a percentage point.

My UNH share count rose by 7.14% with this purchase.  I now own 30.028 shares of the stock.  My annual forward dividend income increased by $16.80 with the buy.

This purchase also raised my cost basis by a chunk.  It rose by $6.30/share, to $298.68/share.

Despite the addition, UNH failed to move up in my Portfolio rankings, as it was about $2K behind the next closest stock in the rankings, which was Starbucks (SBUX).  However, UNH now has a bigger lead over Texas Instruments (TXN) than it had.  UNH still is my Portfolio’s 21st largest position.

UNH remained my 3rd largest Healthcare holding, behind AbbVie (ABBV) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).  I wouldn’t mind continuing to add to my UNH position at current prices.

 

Summary

My first Portfolio transactions in May are in the books.  I made a pair of moves – 1 sale, and 1 buy of an existing Portfolio holding.

The sale was a trim of MSFT.  I sold a single share (my most expensive share) that I’d bought 3 months ago.

With some cash that I added to the MSFT sale proceeds, I bought a pair of shares of UNH, which has come down in price significantly over the past month.

The transactions resulted in a net investment into my Portfolio of $331.00.  My forward dividend income also increased by $13.48 as a result of the two moves.

With the MSFT sale, I realized a short-term capital gain of $34.16 – not bad for a single share.

With the MSFT sale being just a trim, and the UNH buy just adding to my existing Portfolio position, the number of holdings in my Portfolio remained at 59.

 

What stocks have you bought or sold recently?  If nothing, what’s on your radar?  I look forward to your comments!