Dividends- Slow and Steady
Received my dividend statement from CDP today and its 7 pages long. Which is a good sign.
Totaled up the figures over the total sum invested and it is a cool 2.2% return. With the around unrealised 23% profit over total sum invested in the stock market, it is a far cry from the March 2009 lows.
And it was a scary low of more than 50% down in March 2009, near to 60% down, I think. So the stock market is not for the faint hearted.
I like to think that this dividend is additional income on top of what my normal salary is. So it is like having a 2.2% increment to one’s salary, no matter what the underlying stock is doing. And what is the interest rates that banks are paying for deposits? So for me, investing in stocks is a no brainer. Plus with the added bonus that 2009 was supposed to be a recessionary year and 2.2% was paid out.
Plus the stocks in my portfolio are dividend cash cows of the stock exchange, a real estate REIT which collects rents, a bank (who gave the option of more shares or cash- which I opted for more shares instead of cash dividends), a bread company which has food courts and high end restaurants.
The only stock that didn’t give any dividends was Informatics, which I bought not dividend stock but as a turnaround and multi-bagger. After reading Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street, I will be looking harder at classifying all the different stocks I have and will have more things that I will have to notice.
The good thing is that they are things that are simple to do. Like looking out for who is buying what in the family and what is selling like hot cakes when we are all out for Singaporean’s favourite activities- Shopping and Eating.
So all in all, a rather good start to the Year of 2010. What was your dividend returns for last year and how many pages?
January 20, 2010 at 11:21 PM
My dividend returns were about S$6,000 and was about 4.5% of my current portfolio cost. However, I expect this year's dividend amount to be higher and yield to be above 5%.
Anyway my CDP Statement for dividends was also about 5-6 pages long. I shall try to do better this year - so far already received some Suntec REIT dividend for Jan 2010.
Cheers,
Musicwhiz
January 26, 2010 at 11:20 PM
Hi Musicwhiz,
Cool. Your dividend yield situation is 2 times better :) I need to look more carefully at the dividend yields which is always a better bet than hoping for growth in prices.
Lemizeraq
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