ETF Monkey

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...

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. This morning, I added a few additional shares of General Electric ( GE ) to the portfolio. My original position was purchased at $26.77 per share. Since that time, the share price has continued to decline, allowing me to pi...

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. This morning, I added additional shares to one of the holdings for the first time. That holding is Starbucks ( SBUX ).   In brief, my original position was purchased at $58.12 per share. This price represented a decline of almost e...

Great news for online savers! Synchrony Bank , which at 1.05% already sported one of the most competitive interest rates for an online savings account, announced today that, effective 6/1/17, the rate is being raised to 1.15%. Now, this is nothing earthshaking. It's one-tenth of one percent. However, this is the first time in years that I have seen one of the online banks actually raise their interest rate. A little research appears to reveal that competitor Ally Bank has also raised their rates. Their website appears to show their rate as 1.05% effective 6/1/17, as opposed to the previous long-standing rate of 1.00%. Another major competitor, Capital One , appears to be falling further and further behind, with their rate remaining at a comparatively paltry .75%. Since the financial meltdown of 2007-2009, one of the groups that has suffered the most are small savers. While the stock market has soared, benefiting those fortunate enough to have both the money to invest as wel...

Based on the principles I outline in this article , I added a small amount of AT&T and Verizon to the portfolio this morning. My personal portfolio hit a recent high on March 17. This morning, I ran my personal report and evaluated the respective weightings of T & VZ as of 3/17 vs. this morning. Due to some recent uncertainty in the case of both companies, and a soft quarterly report from Verizon, their prices have softened and their relative weightings had slipped compared to the overall markets. I just thought it was a nice opportunity to pick up some dividends in the 5% range.

Based on a recent investment outlook from Vanguard, I wrote an article offering some suggestions on how to position your portfolio for the remainder of 2017. In the article, I made the following observation:​ If you have been heavily invested in U.S. stocks, likely your portfolio has performed extremely well of late, particularly since Donald Trump's surprising win in the presidential election. Following an initial overnight drop in futures in the early-morning hours on November 9, the markets rocketed upwards once they opened and, more or less, have not stopped since. At their closing prices on March 31, the Dow was up 12.7%, the S&P 500 up 10.4% and the Nasdaq up a whopping 13.8% from their respective closing prices on November 8, 2016. However, I went on to note some of the reasons Vanguard offered to suggest that, at best, market returns will be muted for the foreseeable future. Along with that, I shared the view of several market commentators who believe valua...

You may remember that classic line from the series Hill Street Blues. Each morning, as he concluded his morning briefing, Sargeant Phil Esterhaus reminded his officers of the importance of staying alert and being careful. This may be very timely advice for investors as well. I got to thinking about this as the market closed today. Why? Because, as of today's close my personal portfolio is at an all-time high. That in and of itself is not unusual. U.S. market averages are also at all-time highs. In fact, the Dow just posted its 9th straight record close. What is a little unusual is that I have now achieved new all-time highs for 10 straight days. And what THAT means is that there is an unusually low amount of volatility in the market. Think about it for a minute. Would you agree that there is currently what can only be described as a higher-than-normal level of volatility in the world? Might you even go so far to describe it as fear and uncertainty? N...

As 2016 drew to a close, I was busily working both on encouraging millennials to make investing their New Year's Resolution, as well as on the ETF Monkey Focus series of articles. To-date, I have reviewed no less than 21 ETFs in this series, all of them with expense ratios of .19% or less. I hope to continue adding to this series on approximately a weekly basis until I have reviewed somewhere in the area of 100 ETFs. Along the way, however, a couple of readers asked me to do a quick article suggesting some great ETFs to own going into 2017. I thought I would oblige, so spent a little time doing some research. Here is the resulting article . Readers must be loving it. Although, as I write this, the article has only been online for 11 days, it is already my top-read article of the last year. The last year ! Thanks to every one of my readers! ----------- Authors Note: If you like my work, I would be profoundly grateful if you would take a minute to follow...

For today, just three quick pictures. First, from Apple's latest 10-K. As shown above, as of the most recent quarterly report, Apple's cash hoard is a whopping $237 billion. But notice the highlighted phrase in the bottom paragraph. Of that amount, some $216 billion is held offshore, outside the borders of the U.S. The trouble is, to bring that cash back home, Apple would have to pay the U.S. corporate tax rate of 35% on those funds. I'll do the math for you. That's $75.6 billion. To this point, Apple has politely turned down that "offer," preferring to use low-interest-rate debt to return cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks. As of yesterday, enter Donald J. Trump. Take a look at this, from the tax plan announced on his campaign website.

Regular readers know that AT&T and Verizon represent two of the four individual-stock positions in my portfolio. Combined, my target weighting for these two stocks is 5% of my portfolio. These are significant income-generators for me. With dividend yields just a hair under 5% at today's prices, these two stocks contribute almost 10% of my total dividends in the portfolio. Today, I own 5 shares more of each stock that I did at the beginning of the year. And those shares were virtually free, thanks to my process of disciplined rebalancing. Let me explain. As of June 21, 2016, following sharp increases in price, AT&T & Verizon held weightings of 2.87% and 2.84%, respectively, in my portfolio. Combined, that represented a 5.71% weighting, or some 14.2% (in relative terms) over my target weight. So, in disciplined fashion, I sold enough of each to bring their weightings back to approximately 2.50%. Here are the transactions:

My regular readers may recognize the fact that Jamba Juice ( JMBA ) is the one tiny, speculative position in my personal portfolio. When new CEO David Pace took the reins a few months back, it quickly became apparent that the new management team, and likely the company's large investors, felt that previous CEO James White had devoted too much time and expense to developing peripheral lines of business, and not enough to developing the core business. As a result, I was not surprised to see the company recently announce that they are exiting the JambaGO business . Essentially, this operation dispensed pre-made smoothies from a machine, similar to the way you might buy a Slurpee at 7-Eleven. I would not be surprised to find that the new management team felt that this initiative likely diluted their "premium" brand. Speculative investors might look to pick up a few shares. This new team just might be on the right track.

Just a quick hit for today. Apple has taken a lot of flack for its recently introduced iPhone SE. Given that, I found this quote from Tim Cook on today's earnings call very interesting. We had a very successful global launch of iPhone SE, and demand outstripped supply throughout the quarter . We brought on additional capacity and were able to achieve supply/demand balance as we entered the September quarter. At its launch, we said that the addition of the iPhone SE to the iPhone lineup placed us in a better position to meet the needs of customers who love a four-inch phone and to attract even more customers into our ecosystem. In both cases, that strategy is working. Our initial sales data tells us that the iPhone SE is popular in both developed and emerging markets , and the percentage of iPhone SE sales going to customers who are new to iPhone is greater than we've seen in the first weeks of availability for other iPhones launched in the last several years....

I know I go on and on about disciplined rebalancing. In this article , I also address the concept that each asset class in your portfolio can be viewed as a form of "currency," and can be expensive or cheap. Today, I merely wanted to share a quick real-world example of how this worked in my personal portfolio. The picture below is a 6-month graph from Yahoo Finance. The blue line represents the Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ), the red line the Vanguard Utilities ETF (VPU) and the green line the S&P 500 average. You will quickly notice that both VNQ and, even more dramatically, VPU have outperformed the S&P. As a result, the "overweight" indicator recently flashed up for both of them in my portfolio, to the tune of about 7-8% overweight. The red arrows represent my two recent sales to bring them back in line; VNQ on 5/9 and VPU on 5/13. Want to know a little secret? As I write this, both are now slightly underweight in my portfolio. The sharp drop you see in...

In a recent article , I featured the concept of being alert to various forms of "currency" when structuring and rebalancing your portfolio. I would like to share with you a quick example of how I did just that in my own portfolio this morning. Last October, I added Wal-Mart ( WMT ) to my personal portfolio. I wrote about the decision in this article for Seeking Alpha. As it turns out, this proved to be a timely purchase. While the markets in general have been extremely volatile to open 2016, WMT has risen a solid 10% from my average purchase price of ~$60.00. However, several recent articles from Seeking Alpha authors whom I respect have questioned WMT's valuation at these prices. Here is one example of such an article. I decided that I agreed with their view.

In response to some reader requests, I just finished up my latest article for Seeking Alpha. Here is a quick peek at my summary: Summary In a recent article, I explained my reasons for adding Wal-Mart to my ETF-anchored portfolio. I promised that, should that article prove popular, I would share my other individual stock holdings as well as my reasoning for their place in my portfolio. This article will discuss all 4 holdings in my portfolio at the time I made that promise, as well as one very recent addition. If this sounds intriguing, here's a link to the article. Author's Note:  If you find my work valuable, I would be greatly indebted if you would take a minute to follow me on  Twitter ,  Facebook , and/or  Google+ . My goal is for my work to remain entirely free of cost to my readers, and growing my following such that I generate an increasing number of page views will hopefully allow me to keep it this way.

In previous articles for both Seeking Alpha and this blog , I have analyzed the iShares Core S&P Total Market ETF ( ITOT ) . BlackRock, Inc . recently announced huge changes to this ETF, effective December 18, 2015. First, at least for a short time, it became the cheapest ETF ever offered to the public. Secondly, it will be tied to a much broader index going forward, one that in my view much more accurately reflects the total U.S. market. In a new article for Seeking Alpha, I take an in-depth look at all of these changes. Particularly if you are a Fidelity Brokerage client, I encourage you to check out my analysis. If you have ignored ITOT in the past in favor of competing ETFs, this article may encourage you to take a second look. Author's Note: If you find my work valuable, I would be greatly indebted if you would take a minute to follow me on Twitter , Facebook , and Google+ . My goal is for my work to remain entirely free of cost to my readers, and growing my follow...

Today's article is going to come from a very interesting place for ETF Monkey. Readers who have followed my work will by now be familiar with its main focus, namely using ETFs to build low-cost, extremely diversified portfolios. An example of this is the ETF Monkey Vanguard Core Portfolio ; based on just three ETFs yet offering well-balanced exposure to both domestic and foreign stocks as well as bonds. In the article linked above, I advocated establishing target weightings and sticking to these. I wish to reiterate that, for many investors, I would recommend sticking to that game plan. ETFs form the core of my portfolio, comprising 81.11% of my total portfolio as of this writing, and I am very conscious of maintaining and rebalancing to target weights. However, I occasionally make an exception and maintain modest positions in individual stocks for specific reasons. As of this writing, two such positions are AT&T Inc.  and Verizon Communications , each of which holds a we...

Today's action alert features the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO). This ETF, as the name implies, focuses on emerging markets. Take a quick look at the picture below and the I will offer some brief comments.

Today's action alert features the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF . Have a quick look at the chart below. It reveals that, since March 2, 2015, this ETF has fallen 4.24% against only 1.32% on the S&P 500 index. Click to Enlarge