I continued with my elevated Portfolio transaction activity in July. As a result, I’ve got another pair of transactions to share now.
This time around, it’s a pair of complete sells… purging two stocks from my Portfolio. One stock I was indifferent about, while the other I was more than ready to eliminate.
Despite those different feelings, I let them both go because… they were the two smallest positions in my Portfolio, and I didn’t have any desire to make them bigger.
One sale took its sector to the bottom of my stock Portfolio in terms of weighting. The other sale provided a short-term capital loss that I’ll use to offset some gains that I booked in the first half of 2025.
The result of the transactions was a withdrawal from my Portfolio and a hefty decrease in my forward dividend income. I view the latter as a temporary issue since in the near-term I plan to reinvest enough of the sale proceeds to recoup my forward dividend income.
Let’s take a closer look at the details for my latest Portfolio transactions…
American Tower (AMT)
At the time I added AMT to my Portfolio back in early 2023, the company was providing quarterly dividend raises. I hoped that would continue. However, the number of future raises were not only reduced, but they became inconsistent.
In addition, the stock has traded sideways during the time I’ve held the stock. Sure there were ups and downs along the way, but essentially it traded sideways.
These issues ignited some discontent with the stock.
AMT was already a small position when I trimmed it 3 months ago. I thought I might buy back those shares should AMT’s share price drop. However, the price actually climbed a bit so I abandoned that thought.
Three months later, since I wasn’t ready to make the position bigger, I just decided to eliminate the holding, take my gains and move on. AMT appeared to be trading at a reasonable valuation at the time I sold.
On 7/16/25, I sold all 14.359 shares at $222.9048/share. The sale proceeds were $3,200.69 after not having to pay any SEC fee.
At my sale price, shares of AMT yielded 3.05%… fairly low for a REIT. Yet this was a tad higher than its 5-year average yield of 2.85%, and my current Portfolio yield of 2.70%.
With this sale, I realized a long-term capital gain of $570.03 and a short-term capital gain of $8.74. The sale also resulted in a $97.64 decline in annual forward dividend income.
Since my initial AMT purchase back in February 2023 until this final sale, I calculate my annualized return for AMT to be 10.56%. Despite the stock trading sideways over my entire holding period, my share additions during the times when the stock dipped in price allowed me to end up with a decent positive return.
I’d consider buying AMT again, but in the short-term the stock won’t hit my radar unless it declines below $200/share.
Flowers Foods (FLO)
I established my FLO position in late February and had hopes that it would be a decent investment for me. Boy, was I wrong.
Even though the stock price had declined significantly in the months before I bought, the stock has continued to drop in price since then.
In addition, earnings estimates continue to get ratcheted down. 2025 is looking to be the company’s worst year for earnings since 2006. In addition, the earnings decline from this year are not even expected to be recovered for more than 2 years.
Rather than continue to hold and hope for better, I decided to cut my losses, claim the capital loss and invest the sale proceeds elsewhere. Where those proceeds will go is still undetermined.
On 7/16/25, I entered an order to sell my entire position, but only 160.046 shares sold, at $15.60/share. The sale proceeds were $2,496.72 after not having to pay any SEC fee.
The remaining 56 shares were sold the next day for a slightly higher price of $15.721429/share. The proceeds from this sale were $880.40… no SEC fee here either.
So, over the course of 2 days I purged my entire FLO position of 216.046 shares for total sales proceeds of $3,377.12. At my average sales price, these shares of FLO yielded 6.33%. This was easily more than 2x my current Portfolio yield.
With this sale, I realized a short-term capital loss of $862.93. The sale also resulted in an unwelcome $213.89 reduction in annual forward dividend income.
Since my initial FLO purchase back in February of this year until this final sale, I calculate my return for FLO to be -18.45%. Ouch. That’s a hefty decline in less than 5 months.
I won’t be considering dipping my toes back in the FLO waters anytime soon… maybe never.
Summary
Portfolio activity in July remained elevated, as I followed-up some moves I made earlier this month with a couple more. These most recent transactions ended up being sells.
I eliminated what were the two smallest holdings from my Portfolio. One stock I didn’t plan to add to moving forward (AMT) so I figured I’d sell, while the other stock I was ready to see go due to poor performance and a shaky short-term outlook (FLO).
The AMT sale reduced the weighting of the Real Estate sector in my Portfolio, now making it my smallest stock sector (my Energy holdings will be happy to be out of that position). Meanwhile, the FLO sale resulted in my Consumer Staples sector getting a haircut. However, I’m in my preferred weighting range for that sector.
The transactions resulted in a big net withdrawal from my Portfolio of $6,577.81, and a hefty $311.53 drop in my forward dividend income. I haven’t determined where I’ll invest the sales proceeds yet, or if I can recoup all the income I gave up, but I’m working on it.
Combining the AMT and FLO sales, I recorded a long-term capital gain of $570.03, a short-term capital gain of $8.74, and a short-term capital loss of $862.93.
I realized an annualized return of 10.56% with AMT, and an investment return of -18.45% with FLO. Needless to say, I liked my AMT investment better.
With both AMT and FLO exiting my Portfolio, the number of holdings in my Portfolio was reduced by two, and now stands at 58.
Do you currently own AMT or FLO? What do you think of these two stocks? Would you add to either position at this time, hold them, or exit like me? I look forward to your comments!