My dividend-paying stock investments basically started with 5 core stocks that I started buying via DRiP in the mid-to-late 1990s:
PG (1995), AFL & RPM (1996), PEP (1997), and JNJ (1998)
This was long before I had constructed the “dividend portfolio” shown below. I just refer to it as my ‘Portfolio’.
I was just starting my investing journey back then. The investments were often small, $50 or $100. However, by contributing when I could and reinvesting dividends, the value of these holdings continued to grow. RPM, PG, JNJ, PEP & AFL have paid me more in dividends over the years than my investment in them!
I got focused on building my dividend Portfolio in mid-2015.
The current Portfolio yield is decent, but not high, as I like having a few higher-growth, dividend-paying stocks in the portfolio (ex. ACN, AVGO, DOX, LOW, MSFT, NKE, NXST, SBUX, SWKS, UNH, V). These stocks bring my Portfolio yield down. However, I do own a couple of stocks in ABBV & TROW that sport higher yields, yet still provide higher dividend growth.
Currently, there are 58 stocks in my Portfolio.
Shares and Prices are through 3/31/2024.
Any tickers in light blue were sold in their entirety earlier in the calendar year. Tickers in red are new to the Portfolio in the calendar year. Tickers in purple were Investor Advisory Service (IAS) recommendations at the time I initiated the position.
I try to stay fairly closely aligned with the S&P 500 sector weightings, but there are a few sectors I tend to underweight or exclude, such as Utilities and Energy. These sectors tend to have companies with larger dividend yields as opposed to higher growth companies. I’d like to increase my holdings in Information Technology.
The table below shows the number of stocks I own in each S&P 500 sector. It also compares the S&P 500 Weighting by sector to My Portfolio Weighting by sector, and lastly shows the Dividend Weighting of my Portfolio by sector.
The Weight Diff. column shows percentage point difference, by sector, between my Portfolio and the S&P 500. I try to stay within +/- 3 percentage points of the S&P 500 sector weightings. If outside this range, I’ll color the cell green if I’m overweight, or red if I’m underweight.
I added my Portfolio diversification by supersector, too. For supersectors, I try to stay within +/- 5 percentage points of the S&P 500 supersector weightings.
Finally, in order to offer a different, colorful way to view my Portfolio, I’ve generated this treemap. You can see my sector and individual stock weightings at a glance.
I would love to check in with you at the end of the year, our portfolios are about the same $amount all in, $288k you, and $275 me. I would like to compare total annual dividend notes, I am at $ 6,608 not counting anything for December yet. Would be an interesting side by side.
Absolutely, OthalaFehu… please do check in. I’m a shade under $5,900 for dividends through November, and suspect I’ll finish around $6,700 for 2017. Based on this, and my slightly higher $ amount, your portfolio yield must be higher than mine. I currently lean a little more toward growth compared to yield for the portfolio. For instance, four of my portfolio stocks yield under 1%. Looking forward to hearing from you after we close out 2017.
Nice work. I see we share a lot of similar companies and its interesting to see how other people weight their portfolios.
Thanks, YD. Yes, quite a few of the same companies, but always a few different ones, too.
Even with similar names, the different weightings can result in a portfolio with a different emphasis.
One other aspect that appears to be in common… I think we tilt towards growth over yield.
Hi Engineering Dividends,
Found your site through Divhut’s comments. Amazing that you started your positions in PG, AFL, PEP, JNJ, and RPM back in the mid 90’s! People like you are who inspires me to continue my dividend journey that I started in 2015! Continue the great work, I’ll be checking back again! Also if you don’t mind I’ll add you to my blogroll!
Welcome, DividendLiberty. I’m always glad to have new visitors.
DivHut is a great site, so it’s no surprise you were perusing all the content. Thanks for letting me know how you came to find Engineering Dividends.
Yeah, those 5 stocks you mentioned I’ve held continuously for all those years. They’ve each been terrific investments for me with somewhere between 7%-13% CAGRs over that time. Of that group, I believe AFL has been my best performer, with RPM not too far behind. If interested in more details on how I built my positions in those stocks, how I DRiPed them over time, and the power of the compounding, check out the “Performance Check” posts I have for each.
I’m glad I can provide some inspiration. I didn’t really get started with investing until I was almost 30, and it took me a while to ramp things up. In hindsight, of course, I wished I’d started sooner and invested more than I did, but there are always competing priorities. The compounding would be even more impressive by now had I started at 20!
Please do continue to check back. I’ll be stopping by for a visit to your site as well. It’s always great to see what stocks interest other investors, get different perspectives, etc.
Also, please feel free to add me to your blogroll. That would be awesome. Creating my own blogroll is something I’ll have to plan on… so many great sites to share.
Hope to see you around again soon!
I just found your blog via Twitter – very interesting content! Would you mind sharing how you created the treemap? I would like to do something similar for my portfolio tracking / overview in Python, but it seems to be a bit tricky with 2 dimensions (sector and company).
Thanks!
Welcome, Sebastian!
I created the treemap in Microsoft Excel, as there’s a built-in function there.
I started by providing 3 columns of data (sector, company name, $ value), then added a built-in hierarchy chart in Excel, called ‘treemap’, which pointed at those columns of data.
There are some additional notes in my Portfolio Treemap post, so check those out, too.
Hope this helps.
Is it possible to get your spreadsheet?
How is YoC calculated?
Welcome, Fred!
I don’t have my spreadsheet available at this time. The Portfolio piece I show here is actually just a small portion of everything I keep track of. Perhaps I’ll make something available in the future.
As for the YoC. It’s just the current annual dividend divided by the cost basis per share (then multiplied by 100 to obtain a percentage).
Hope this helps!
How do you feel about MO? Recently just took a hit with juul. Great blog BTW 👍 Always love to see your progress as it gives some us newbies inspiration.
Welcome, Bill! I’m glad you like the blog… and I’m happy to share my progress. Hopefully, you find something of value on the site.
Oooh, MO is a tough one for me. I basically bought my shares in 2018 and the price has trended down or sideways ever since. The dividend has kept my total return close to even, but I think I’m still slightly negative.
After 4 years, I would have hoped for more. Even dividend growth has waned over the past 2-3 years and it doesn’t appear that will improve anytime soon given the company headwinds.
I certainly get a nice dividend for the shares I have, but MO does have one of the poorest dividend safety scores in my Portfolio at ‘Borderline Safe’. I’d trade some of that yield for a safer dividend.