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Clearly, Not Everyone Is Getting Rich Off The Stock Market

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Well, the NY Fed was out today with its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit for Q4 2017. Clearly, Americans are in a lot of debt. Take a look. Just a couple of quick hits from the report. Total U.S. household debt rose $193 billion in the 4th quarter, to a new all-time peak of $13.15 trillion. That's 17.9% above the most recent trough in Q2 2013. Broken down by segment, what do you suppose was the largest gain in percentage terms? Credit cards, with a 3.2% increase. In the picture above, the widening gap represented by the red arrows reflects the fact that non-housing debt is rising at a faster pace than housing debt. Here's what's troubling about that. Below is a picture of the stock market, as represented by the S&P 500 index, over that same period; from the most recent credit trough in Q2 2013 to the end of 2017. And thus, the title of this article. Over that period, the S&P 500 index rose by 75%; from roughly 1,600 to 2,800. Apparently, ho...
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Added A Little Wells Fargo to The ETF Monkey Core Monthly Dividend Portfolio

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In February, 2017, I wrote an article for Seeking Alpha entitled A Dividend Portfolio Built From The World's Best Dividend ETFs. I later expanded on the work I did in a second article, entitled 20 Top Stocks For A Monthly Dividend Portfolio. In this article, I expanded the original portfolio of 12 stocks to 20, with the specific goal of adding companies that, together, generated at least some level of income for the portfolio each and every month.

At the end of that second article, I revealed that I had "put my money where my mouth is," selling all my holdings in 4 dividend-focused ETFs and replacing them with the 20 stocks listed in the article, as well as two "bonus" stocks. I implemented all of this on July 20, 2017.

I recently added a few additional shares of Wells Fargo (WFC) to the portfolio.



My original position was purchased at $54.93 per share. Since that time, the share price has continued to decline, allowing me to pick up a small additional amount for $49.67 this past Wednesday morning. As it happens, it is trading at $49.68 as I write this, so not much has changed since my purchase.

Wells Fargo is going through a difficult time at the moment due to a recent update which revealed an increase in the number of unauthorized consumer and small-business accounts that were opened. As readers may be aware, Wells has unfortunately been caught up in multiple scandals over the past year, all of which have to some extent damaged the reputation of what had previously been viewed as one of the best-run banks out there. However, for a shareholder such as myself, who plans on holding for the long term, and as part of my core dividend portfolio, I have to look past the current scandals and ask myself whether their long-term future is still sound. In this article, one of my fellow Seeking Alpha authors argues that it is. I might also note that Morningstar rates Wells Fargo 4-stars, despite the status of the various scandals.

What do you think? Add more? Hold? Or sell? All comments are welcomed.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 8, 2017 at 1:32 PM

    Here's one thing I really enjoy about dividend investing. This was only a 10-share add of WFC for men. But, with the dividends I received today from AGG, BND, BSV and TIP, together with those I received earlier in the month from COST, PFE and, ironically, WFC itself, my cash level is only $95 short of where I stood at 8/31.

    In other words, it is only 9/8, my cash level is almost equal to what it was at 8/31, and I own 10 more shares of WFC purchased, at the very least, at somewhat depressed prices.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownSeptember 8, 2017 at 1:37 PM

      Errata. That first paragraph should have read:

      Here's one thing I really enjoy about dividend investing. This was only a 10-share add of WFC for me. But, with the dividends I received today from AGG, BND, BSV and TIP, together with those I received earlier in the month from COST, PFE and, ironically, WFC itself, my cash level is only $95 short of where I stood at 8/31.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 27, 2018 at 4:33 AM

    Hello there I am so glad I found your blog, I really found you by error, while I was searching on Google for something else, Anyhow I am here now and would just like to say cheers for a marvelous post and a all round enjoyable blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to browse it all at the minute but I have bookmarked it and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a lot more, Please do keep up the superb job. etf asien

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