March 2017 Dividends

Good morning,

today please allow me to provide an update of my March 2017 performance. I know it's late, I apologise.

When looking at March, we are standin in front of the biggest over-achievement ever performed by my portfolio, an astounding +498%!

The total net dividends collected throughout the month amounted to £44.77, which is not very high compared to my first months in 2017, but the relative performance versus the same month a year ago shows how strong is the growth in my portfolio.

March 2016 dividends = £7.49
March 2017 dividends = £44.77 WOW!!

Here is the list of dividends collected:
iShares J.P. Morgan $ Emerging Markets Bond UCITS ETF (SEMB) £3.47
Intel (INTC) £5.38
L Brands (LB) £8.30
Microsoft (MSFT) £9.55
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) £8.38
Unilever plc (LON:ULVR) £9.69

Total for the month = £44.77

So Q1 2017 is over and I can already say it's a success!
Q1 2016 vs Q1 2017 shows £54.74 vs £170.65, going great.

Last but not least, my all time dividends collected thus far, £571.37.
Life is good.

This is it for the moment, thanks for reading.
Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

February 2017 Dividends

Hi everybody.

As promised few days back on Twitter (@gentlemaninvstr), I am pleased to share my February Dividend performance report.

I am really, really superproud of my performance this month! In fact I smashed my all time record (previously December 2016 - £68.42) with an amazing £71.99 😎.

Most importantly, this new figure is +393% higher than the same month last year (Feb 2016 - £14.59).

Here is the list of dividends collected:
AT&T (T) £21.40
Vodafone (LON:VOD) £17.45
Verizon (VZ) £11.78
British Land (LON:BLND) £10.95
Apple (AAPL) £1.94
Starbucks (SBUX) £8.47

Total for the month = £71.99

This is exactly the level of performance improvement that I am trying to achieve this year. 

I am very conscious that this is relatively easy to achieve when you have just started in your investing activity, but I still like to think that the above graph shows a good result. 

It's also the final confirmation that my strategy is finally starting to pay off. Never before, in fact, I have received so many dividends in a single month - 6 different companies have rewarded me to be an investor in their business.

So far so good. January 2017 marked an incredible +53.4% YoY, but February smashed all records with its +393%!!
If it was possible to keep this pace, my financial independence would be reached far quicker than I am planning. However, let's keep in mind that this is the first year I am able to compare the performance relative to the previous financial period. I still think +20% YoY (average) is my sustainable long term growth target growth.

This is it for the moment, thanks for reading.
Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

January 2017 Dividends

Welcome to my blog.

The first month of 2017 is already gone and it is now time to check the dividend performance of my investment portfolio.

This is a very important occasion to me. As a matter of fact, January 2017 is the first month which presents the opportunity to compare the dividend performance year on year (YoY). This is thanks to the fact that 2016 has been my first full year of investment performance coverage and monitoring.

So, without further ado, let's have a look at how January 2017 compared versus January 2016.

Dividends collected:

iShares J.P. Morgan $ Emerging Markets Bond UCITS ETF (SEMB) £4.16
The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) £13.57
New York Mortgage Trust (NYMT) £32.37

Total for the month = £50.10

The performance against 2016 is really encouraging, +53.4% (from £32.66 to £50.10). 

This is mainly due to the investments done in H2 2016 which are now starting to show their positive effect. Indeed in H2 I increased my position in Disney (+15 shares) and started a new position in SEMB (10 shares).

This is why I love this game. Even if I decided to pull the plug in 2017 and stop investing, I would still experience a decent level of growth thanks to prior investment which still have to pay their first dividend, organic dividend growth and, possibly, dividend reinvestment.

My all time cumulative chart keeps climbing, as the new total now amounts to £450.82 net from 1 Jan 2016. As you know my objective for the year is to collect over £750 in net dividends.

I can't wait to compare Feb YoY performance, hoping that the positive momentum will continue!

This is it for the moment, thanks for reading.
Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

My objectives for 2017

Hello everybody,

As discussed in my previous article, it's now time to share my objectives for 2017!

You may know that I am an avid reader of investment blogs and publications. It is a healthy habit to compare ourselves every now and then to other bloggers who are too racing towards their financial independence.
Something I noticed in the way my peers set their annual objectives, is that they tend to include a mix of goals ranging from personal growth to travel and life experiences and, of course, financial achievements.

At the end of the day, life's purpose is to grow as individuals, learn new things (often from those who are better than us), enjoy new experiences and widen our minds. At least, this is my vision of life's purpose.

With this approach in mind, I decided to consider adding some personal growth objectives to my 2017 goals - despite the fact that I still consider this blog as a pure financial journal.

Enough introduction, let's take a look at the new goals!

2017 objectives

I see my 2017 as a continuation of 2016. As you may have read in my blog, my 2016 ended pretty well, smashing all my objectives (some of which had already been revised upwards mid-year).
For this reason, many objectives are an updated version of previous goals. However, I hope you'll agree with me that the contents of these revised targets are still ambitious to achieve.

1. Achieve $2250 in projected passive income (this is calculated over the following 12 months period).
   This is up from $1,500 in 2016. I think I could have been more ambitious with this one last year, but I would consider myself lucky I was able to hit the number in 2017 given the recent uncertainty affecting the markets and the late euphoria which caused market overvaluation. Also, in 2016 I took the hit with my Santander current account. In fact, Santander cut its interest rate paid to current account from 3% to 1.5%, therefore greatly reducing my income from this source. I was projecting to get to the end of 2016 with circa £600 in passive interest, whereas I am now facing about £240 of max passive interest when considering also the increased fee for the product. #reallydisappointedwithSantander for ruining my plans.
   
   
2. Increase my Net Worth by 70% over my 2016 result.
   This target would take me to a Net Worth of £90,000 by the end of the year! This is one of my most impressive targets I think. Who would have thought that in just a few year I'd come this close to be worth 100K?
   2017 may be the big one.
   
   
3. Save in excess of £6,500 each quarter.
   As my goal of £2,500 per quarter was achieved with success in 2016, I have decided to up my game this year. I think this goal is now very difficult, but if you know me a little bit you'll understand that I like challenges.
   
   As a partial addition to number 3., I have also added the objective to save over £26,000 over the course of the next 12 months. This is simply the sum of the 4 quarters as per point 3, however I understand that throughout the year I may not be in condition to achieve the quarterly task, but still overachieve the overall target for the year thanks to better performance in other quarters. In such condition, I would consider the objective achieved.
   
   
4. Collect £750 in net dividends.
   This is a new goal. In 2016 I collected £400 net from dividends paid to my account. Not bad, but now I really want to see some progress in this area.
   
   
5. Get a bit more serious about blogging.
   This blog started with no ambitions. I still want it to be my space to talk about my personal finances and offer to other people my honest view. I would like it to become a space where readers have an opportunity to understand my point of view, to track their personal progress against mine and maybe get new ideas or inspirations about investing.
   I really believe that investing your money will be the greatest decision you will ever make, and I want to offer my example for those willing to start. Also, I am upping my game on the other objectives, so it only makes sense to spend some more time taking care of the blog and refining my thoughts over new investment ideas and analysing upcoming opportunities.
   
   
6. Learn something new an get some qualification to add to my cv. Lately I have developed few interests, like learning to code, learning a new language or learning to trade options/active trading.
   I haven't really decided yet what I want to pursue exactly, but rest assured you'll be the first to know!
   
   
7. Keep diversifying my investment portfolio. In 2016 I started the diversification process by picking new stocks covering different industries and business catgories. I am now in posession of a decently diversified stocks portfolio which should be able to maintain its value during bearish market conditions. This is what I hope at least!
   But now I think it's time to start investing/allocating my financial resources onto other channels. The first that came up to mind is gold. In moments of political and financial turmoil, Gold is considered a stable asset class. It generally appreciates during tough times, and my forecast for the next 12-24 months is that gold should outperform the main stock market indexes.
   Keep an eye on this space as I have got few good ideas to implement over the course of the next couple of months. 

This is it for the moment.

2017 will be a great year for investors and I can't wait to start working on my new objectives!

Good luck to everybody.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor