In the first half of March I executed some Portfolio transactions, and I’m here now to share the details of those moves. I made 4 moves in total – 1 trim and 3 purchases of existing holdings.
For the trim, I sold a portion of one of my Communication Services holdings, following through on a thought I shared in last month’s Portfolio Thoughts post. The stock has been hot in recent months, so I decided to trim a bit at the elevated price.
With regard to the three buys, all involved stocks I’d previously purchased within the past year. Apparently, I wasn’t done adding.
Once the set of transactions was complete, the result was a small net investment (less than one hundred dollars), and a decent increase to my forward dividend income.
Here are all the specifics for this latest group of Portfolio transactions…
Verizon Communications (VZ)
I initiated my VZ position almost 4 years ago, in March 2022, at $51/share. Shortly after I bought, the stock started declining and I’ve been underwater on the original shares ever since.
I averaged down my cost basis (to $43.40/share) over the next year while I built out my position. Eventually, I got to a point where I didn’t want to purchase any more shares since the company was not showing growth and the dividend growth was stagnant at around 2%.
By late 2023, my original shares had lost about 1/3 of their value. I held on to VZ due to its hefty yield. Early on, I reinvested the dividends, but eventually I turned off my DRiP since I didn’t want to see the position grow further.
I thought that if the stock price ever got back to $51, I’d unload my original shares, lowering my cost basis further and providing an additional margin of safety should the share price of VZ decline again in the future.
Well, recently VZ shares have been on a tear after reporting strong Q4’25 earnings that included better-than-expected subscriber additions and a positive outlook for 2026. The more competitive strategy outlined by new management appears ready to take hold.
With this price rise, VZ shares did top $51/share again, so I took the opportunity to trim my position by selling my most expensive shares.
On 3/3/26, I sold the 40 shares that comprised my original lot, at $51.0195/share. The sale proceeds were $2,040.78 – no SEC fee.
At my sale price, shares of VZ yielded 5.55%. This is a little more than double my current Portfolio yield of 2.71%.
With this sale, I realized a long-term capital gain of $0.78, as I basically sold at the same price I bought for years ago. The sale also resulted in a $113.20 reduction in my annual forward dividend income.
Roughly 23% of my VZ position was sold. I still have 133.506 shares of VZ left in my Portfolio. As a result of the trim, the cost basis of my remaining shares dropped by $2.27/share, to $41.13/share.
Due to the trim, VZ dropped in my Portfolio rankings. The sale saw VZ slip from 42nd in my rankings, down to 49th (out of 57 holdings). The stock is currently sandwiched in between Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) and Altria Group (MO), a pair of stocks also sporting yields north of 5%.
I’d consider buying back these VZ shares I sold should I be able to secure them at a lower price. At a minimum, the price would need to drop below $48.50, but I’d prefer to buy below $45.
Let’s see what I did with the VZ trim proceeds…
The Walt Disney Co. (DIS)
I last purchased DIS in March of last year at just under $99/share. The P/E ratio for DIS was a bit over 18 at that time.
These days, DIS has dipped under $100 after a run up to almost $125 last summer. The P/E ratio has declined to just under 16 now.
DIS was one of my smaller holdings, and it needed to grow to maintain at least a 0.5% weighting in my Portfolio. With DIS projected for earnings growth in the low double-digits for this year, plus the next two years as well, it seemed like a good time to add.
So, I decided to add some shares to grow the position while doing so at the lowest P/E ratio for any of my DIS purchases. This also kept some of my proceeds from the VZ trim in the Communication Services sector, where I’m already underweight.
On 3/13/26, I bought 5 shares of DIS at $99.36/share, for a total of $496.80. The stock yielded 1.51% at my purchase price. This is a bit more than half my current Portfolio yield.
The purchase raised my DIS share total by almost 11%. I now own 50.624 shares of the company. The buy also added $7.50 to my annual forward dividend income.
My cost basis for DIS rose by just $0.65/share, to $93.40/share. Thus, my shares are still in the green, but not by too much.
Despite the share addition, DIS only transitioned from my 2nd smallest holding to my 3rd smallest holding, surpassing NVIDIA (NVDA). The next stock for DIS to chase down to climb further in my rankings is Amdocs Ltd. (DOX).
I’ll look to buy more DIS should its price decline further.
Microsoft (MSFT)
I added to MSFT last month, buying a couple of shares at $425. Since then, the price of MSFT has dropped, so I’ve continued to add.
MSFT has recently fallen to a P/E ratio around 25, which is as low as the P/E ratio has been in over 3 years. By no means is the stock looking undervalued, but then again, when is it ever.
With MSFT being in the Information Technology sector, and my Portfolio being underweight in that sector, I’m happy to add to this position when I can.
On 3/13/26, I bought 1 share of MSFT at $395.00. The stock yielded 0.92% at my purchase price. This yield is about one-third of my current Portfolio yield. The purchase increased my annual forward dividend income by $3.64.
As a result of the purchase, my MSFT share total rose by about 4.4%. I’ve now accumulated 23.689 shares. My MSFT cost basis advanced by $6.72/share, to $242.45/share.
MSFT rose only one spot in my Portfolio rankings due to my share addition. It rose from the 37th largest holding to my 36th largest, jumping ahead of BlackRock Health Sciences Trust (BME). However, it remains just behind Enbridge (ENB) in my Portfolio rankings.
PIMCO Corporate & Income Strategy Fund (PCN)
I’ve owned PCN in my Portfolio for a little over 9 months. I’ve added to it several times as I’ve built out my position.
Most of the time, my purchases of this closed-end fund have been around the $12.50/share level. So, with a recent pullback dropping the price below $12/share, adding to my PCN position offered a good way to average down my cost basis, and recoup a good chunk of the lost income that resulted from my VZ trim.
This high-yielding multi-sector bond fund offers some diversification for my otherwise all-stock Portfolio. Even after my latest purchase of PCN, it still has a weighting below 1.7% in my Portfolio. Thus, I could afford to add more in the future if that interests me. I think I’d max out at a 3% weighting.
On 3/13/26, I used the last of my VZ sale proceeds (and some cash) to buy 100 more shares of PCN at $11.90/share, for a total of $1,190.00. The fund yielded a hefty 11.34% at my purchase price. This yield is easily more than 4x my current Portfolio yield.
The purchase added $135.00 to my annual forward income, which is more than enough to offset the forward dividend income I lost in the VZ trim.
As a result of the purchase, my PCN share total climbed by nearly 8.5%. I now possess 1,278.172 shares. My PCN cost basis retreated by 6 cents/share, to $12.54/share.
PCN rose one spot in my Portfolio rankings with this share addition. It climbed from my 21st largest holding to my 20th largest. PCN now resides between Starbucks (SBUX) and Merck & Co. (MRK) in my rankings.
Summary
A few Portfolio moves were executed in the first half of March. It was 4 transactions in total, including one trim in the first week, and three purchases about 10 days later.
The transactions started with a trim of VZ. I’d mentioned last month that I might want to sell my most expensive shares should the price of VZ top $51… and it did.
I then redirected my VZ sales proceeds into 3 existing Portfolio stocks/funds: DIS, MSFT & PCN.
The majority of the funds went into PCN, in order to recover the lost dividend income from VZ. The remainder went into DIS & MSFT to boost some of my smaller positions that have recently been down on their luck.
The four transactions resulted in a tiny net investment of $41.02 into my Portfolio. My annual forward income rose by $32.94 as a result of the moves, with PCN accounting for almost all of that.
My VZ trim saw me realize a long-term capital gain of $0.78, as I basically sold my shares for the same price I bought them at years ago.
My cost basis for my remaining VZ shares dropped to $41.13 with the trim. As for the purchases, my cost basis rose for DIS and MSFT, but fell a bit for PCN.
With VZ remaining in my Portfolio, and DIS, MSFT & PCN already being a part of my Portfolio, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio remained at 57.
Are you a VZ owner? If so, what do you make of the recent run-up in price? Is there more to come? Would you have purchased DIS or MSFT at their current prices? I look forward to your comments!