Week in Review

Happy weekend everyone!  A short update this week as I'm nursing myself back to health after being sick for the week.

Performance:  Week over week -.47% compared to S&P at ~ -2.2% and NASDAQ at ~ -2.3%.  With violitlity high all last week and more headwinds coming, I cannot allocate more funds towards growth. I would love to, but I'm not ready yet. As I mentioned earlier this week, I have convinction in my picks but not in the general market at this time. 

Michael Gayed brings up a great point below. With stocks & treasuries down, where does one go for flight to safety?  Who's safe from getting crushed?  When Luna and other crypto ponzi schemes come crashing down, where will the money go?  I'm in agreement that treasuries have to pick up the slack at some point. I've been allocating a portion of the portfolio to $SCHO and moved some more last week ready to deploy into opportunities as I find them.

Said it before, saying it again.

This environment is worse than 2020 and worse than 2008.

This is hell.

The only thing that gives me hope - Treasuries are finally acting risk-off again.

And if it holds, it means only now are real risk-off conditions manifesting.

— Michael A. Gayed, CFA (@leadlagreport) May 12, 2022

 Dividends:  When you can lose 2% - 3% of your portfolio any given day, sometimes income feels like a drip into a leaky bucket. Since we're going for the long-term here though, I'm comfortable the dividend growth stocks we've selected will weather the long-term fluctuations and keep adding up over time.

• $MED - $42.64
• $MMP - $137.99
• $COST - $8.10
• $MAIN - $21.72
• $O - $28.65
• $APPL - $11.27

Crossed over $4,500 in total dividends this week which feels great. In about 3 weeks we'll get to $5,000. 

Projected Annual Dividend Income (PADI) is ~$9.6K. Some of this is a function of some higher yield buys like $XYLD, $MMP, $ETO, $VZ, but I'm comfortable with the balance now.

Dividend Increases: Two weeks ago we received another increase in Telus, a Canadian telecom company. 

Options: Netted $154 mainly trading $SBUX covered calls as they went downhill. Also sold $AFL and $PFE covered call expiring next week <.30 delta. I'm closing my red gap on covered call income and hope to be in the black by July. I am sitting on an $AMC $17 put that expires in July which should have room to grow. 

Sectors: I'm a little overweight on Consumer Discretionary in this enviroment. I don't consider Dollar General 'truly' discretionary if we're looking at a recessionary enviroment and while Lowes and Target may be down, these are comfortable longer term holds.

 I'm disappointed with Williams Sonoma performance. They rank very highly on my screener (23 out of 25 points), and a quick view on Stock Rover shows some great consistent performance. Sales growth, FCF, Gross Margin, Net Margin, all heading the right direction except the stock price. In a recessionary enviroment I'm sure they will not do as well, so I'll need to think about either holding or selling. It feels like the right company at the wrong time. 

Other Trading: Sold my remaining $NVDA shared Friday at a small loss. Fortunately I purchased in October, rode a wave to ~>50% increase and sold some shares at a high so was mainly playing with house money.  As a lifelong gamer I'm very familiar with $NVDA and have been using their products since early 2000's! As interest rates rise and we start seeing more crypto crashes, less drive towards crypto in flight of safety and real assets, NVDA will take a hit. Granted I think it's an awesome long term company, but I think they're still very overvalued.

Next steps: While I keep meaning to rebalance I have had very ltitle free time. If I felt the portfolio was grossly unbalanced I'd find time so for now I'm okay.