Lucky? Smart? Blessed?

Tuesday, August 15, 9:23 am EST. I have been sitting easy all year long. Stocks have been up, they started to get volatile, and they’ve been in recovery, and on to new highs again. Precious metals started the year upward, but have been going up and down, sideways pretty much since, and are getting hammered just today, as stocks are launching again.

None of this has hardly affected me at all, and yet, you read how that I have been growing our portfolio dividend income at an incredible pace. What is it that I am doing?

I’m prepared for about any scenario right now. It works just like this. I have stocks. 57% of our investable assets are in stocks, but that includes whatever gold and silver mining stocks we hold, too. But, we’ve actual physical metals amounting to another 13% of our holdings. Finally, we are 30% in cash, as we have been letting dividends accrue, and adding as much monthly, over our emergency fund balance requires, to our money funds. We’re very close to new all-time high total account value, but that is relatively immaterial to us, as we are so very much about the growth of our portfolio dividend income, and we are making that to grow rapidly.

Here’s my point: I was not trying to strike some kind of a balance, or become market neutral, but in the midst of all the hoopla this year, between stocks and risk, and the metals and risk-off… each day the stocks have been declining, the metals were rising, and whenever the stocks were coming back, the metals were selling off… and the difference in the total value of our accounts together has remained virtually unchanged! I seem to have attained unto a virtual market neutrality with our current asset allocation.

What I am wanting to accomplish in the remainder of this year, however, is to deploy much of our cash into one asset, or the other, as either one, or perhaps both, should give us a lo-risk opportunity to accumulate more of that asset class. I buy stock for long-term investment purposes. I’ve been trading the precious metals miners for appreciation, when there might be a real good economic/financial reason to do so… because this entire world economic system has been so corrupted, and near to breaking, due to the manipulations of the central banks of the worlds’ nations, that when the cows come home, and the chickens come to roost… it’s going to get very bad, and the metals are our insurance, and will be our financial deliverance in that day.

I would tell anyone… buy safe-dividend growing stocks of the very kind I write about here. Buy, also, some precious metals, as your hedge, your insurance, your safety blanket, but also keep accruing cash, and keep building up your balance, so as to take action, and put some to work, whenever opportunity shows itself. It’s been quiet since I called for buying in the metals and in the stocks last month. But, you can take this to the bank, before this year is out, we will almost certainly again, have another opportunity to become buyers, of one, or the other, so as to bolster our own balance sheet. This is no time to be a buyer of either right now, so sit tight, be patient, and wait. It will come. It always does! I know that I am blessed.

Harold

Not Long?

Saturday, August 12. I’m a bit surprised. I updated the timer with all the missing back data, as I had said that I would, and as I had last said… the market reaching new highs, had also put all of the indicators into a measure of extreme risk. The last lo-risk opportunity being mid-July, which I identified, and made some purchases at that time.

Here’s that thing which is of keen interest to me: Some of the indicators had already begun to turn down some time back, and… are already halfway, or more, ‘home.’ What do I make of that? I’d say that this may be a correction only short and shallow! It leads me to believe that the price support I see only a couple or three % away is more likely to hold, than not, to my way of looking at these indicators.

Let’s let things play out some more, going forward. I’ll commence to updating the timer regularly, and let’s see if we can’t nail the next lo-risk market entry opportunity within just the next couple or three weeks maybe.

I’ve got money fund cash I’d like to put to work.

Harold

Timing Update

Tuesday, August 8, 8:47 pm EST. I’ll be updating the timer tomorrow, but I don’t expect anything, but overbought extremes in the technical measures of market risk. That said, today’s market price action gave some pretty traditional indication of having just put in a near-term market top. If so, we might be able to expect the start of a stock market ‘correction’ in prices, if the interpretation of today’s action is statistically indicative of what is to typically follow after that kind of price action we saw today. Let’s see if we begin to start down for awhile, in such a manner that we enter into the somewhat typical later Summer and Fall market swoon that has so frequently set up for the great year-end rallies that seem to have been so common in recent years.

When I update the OEXpert 7 Timer, I’ll report on its status.

Harold

Safe-Dividend Growth Investing

Saturday, August 5, 2017. I’m going to run my search. It will first sort thru a database of nearly 8,000 stock issues. My search criteria will be that a stock must pay a dividend of at least .80%. Eight tenths! Why so little? I get that all the time, and the answer is obvious, once you get it. The very highest-quality, safest-growers of dividends, always get chased after by those who know what these companies really are. As a result, their very safety and quality creates what has come to be called, the “Dividend Magnet Effect,” where the ever-rising, steadily growing, super-safe dividend becomes a prime determinant in the price of a company’s shares, and that rising dividend just keeps investors coming in, and chasing that dividend with an ever-increasing share price. Dividend growth and safety results in a higher share price… and, a lower current yield.

Second, I require a high degree of dividend safety, where none are actually going to be paying out any more than 40% of their earnings as cash to shareholders. I still want R&D and marketing to go on with at least 60% of their earnings being retained. I’m able to direct my search, among dividend payers, to those that are in the very Top 10% for dividend safety. Low yield alone, does not determine safety, but low yield, combined with a relatively low payout, does!

Third, I want to see annual dividend growth in the double-digits. Nothing crazy, mind you, but at least 10%, and better if in the teens. But, and this is crucial, their future pathway of earnings growth needs to look like they’ll be able to keep safely growing their dividend at that rate, going forward into the future.

Then, and this is the “Secret Sauce,” I chart all the selections the analyzer brings to me with a long-range, 10-years of EPS, Dividend Payout and Price data. I want to SEE an EPS line that is just as smooth and steady as these can be! This tells me that management is in control of the company’s business prospects, and not so much the vagaries of the outside economy. I like to say that these companies can “write their own check.” Next, when I chart for dividend payout, I want to see an ever-growing, stair-step pattern of dividend increase “Pay Raises” coming out of that lovely earnings stream I just identified. Then, I look at the price chart. This will tell me if it is one of those recognized by Wall Street, as a premier, long-term investment. How can I tell that? That’s the best part!

I chart an average of all the companies presently in the S&P 500. I compare every EPS line, every dividend payout line, and every price chart against the average for the 500. I ONLY want those whose EPS line is smoother, and grew much faster, than that same line for the 500. I want to see a dividend payout line that is safer and far more consistent in its growth, as well as much faster in its growth, than that same average div line for the 500. Finally, I want to see price to have hopefully been less volatile, but more importantly, to have grown and appreciated well ahead of the 500 companies in the index. In short, I select those that have already proven to have been superior investments than the market has been… and, then, monitor them to see that they just keep on doing what they have been doing. It’s really not hard. It’s actually quite easy. And, my performance, when including the safe-dividend growth to the total return, has outperformed the total return of the S&P 500 by a considerable margin.

BUT, none of that is important to me. I’m retired, and my younger wife intends to in about 5 more years. When she retires, we don’t want to have to “adjust” our lifestyle, because we don’t have the money to live as we had thought that we wanted to. While planners help you to adjust to 85%, 75%, or heaven help you, get by on only something like 60% of what you were bringing home in your working life… My wife and I have targeted and are headed for a retirement in which we managed to replace all, 100%, of that income we had coming in while we were working… 100%. We’re on track. We have set our goal, and we are racing toward our goal at a breakneck speed, because we have harnessed compounding, and it is working for us.

Compounding only requires time to work, but that’s what most people don’t do. They don’t give it the time that it requires. But, harnessing compounding, and giving it time… it works every time! Time is the hero of the compounding growth plot.

James P. O’Shaughnessy, in his tome, What Works On Wall Street, while back-testing some 359 different stock investment strategies, discovered that the safe-dividend growth strategy, when coupled with re-investment of dividends, was among the very top, most successful stock market investment strategies there was. He was absolutely correct in his findings, and we are experiencing the living proof that it is working.

I’ll conduct my search, and post the results, as I conduct it, next!

Here’s to your successful investing!
Harold F Crowell

I Love This Time Each Month!

Friday, August 4, 8:45 am EST. Email announcements notifying us that our monthly brokerage account statements are available online always get my heart to racing. I love this time of each month! It’s like adding another 12 Christmas’ into each year, just for me!

So, how did we do? Who paid us in July? How much was it? How much has it grown over past quarters and last year??? That’s what I like to calculate. That’s what I love to share with my wife. We’re in charge here. We make our portfolio dividend grow; and we cause it to only go UP!!! That’s what it’s all about! Finding and acquiring shares of the very safest of dividend growers is the wisest way to invest, and to be able to passively just let the income grow. It’s so easy! Did the balance increase? I pay so little attention to that, and could hardly care less. I’m not trying to grow a ‘nest-egg’ that I’ll have to spend down, and hope not to go through before I die. We’re building, and leaving, a legacy portfolio to our heirs; our children, and our children’s children!

We saw dividends in July from safe-dividend growers AFG, NKE, OZRK, SNX, SYK, UGI, and USPH. Between the dividend increase “pay raises” and the addition of more shares around each low-risk market entry opportunity, we have caused our portfolio dividend income to increase by 34.6% just since April, and an incredible 102.4% since January! We’re well on our way toward our future retirement income goal, and since the wife would like to work 5 more years, we feel very confident we’re laying a foundation for an excellent retirement with our safe-dividend growing stocks.

Here’s to your investment success!
Harold F Crowell

Rally Over?

Friday, July 28, 6:48 am EST. The appearance of the market yesterday, and the way it is currently looking to open today, and then, the healthcare insurance news out of the Senate overnight, would all tend to suggest that this more recent rally out of the lo-risk entry signal I saw a few weeks back, is likely coming to an end. Of course, that remains to be seen, but I will be updating the timer, and watching for a possible pull-back, to see if it might not reach correction proportions, that we might possibly set-up for a real nice, lower-price, entry opportunity in the not-too-distant future. That would be sweet, wouldn’t it?

In the mean time, what we have coming up next, is the end of another trading month, meaning statements will be coming out, and I’ll be soon reporting who paid me what, and how much it has grown over recent periods. Satisfying retirement income… Here I come, Lord willing!

Here’s to your successful investing!
Harold F Crowell

Mildly Chided

Monday, July 24, 5:09 pm EST. I was mildly chided by a friend over the weekend for not writing the past week. It’s been something of a habit with me, that after I’ve called a lo-risk entry, as I did back on July 12, and I’ve added to my positions, that I generally sit back and let everything ride for a while, before I write some more.

I’m in need of updating the timer, and I’d like to run my search again. I’ll post the results. We’re getting to the end of another month, and that means statements will be coming out again, and I’ll be reporting on our portfolio dividend income and its growth… I love doing that!

So, I’ll get back shortly to bring things back up to date. God bless you all!

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5:48 pm EST. Having run my search, I see some very attractive ideas. I’ll just list them all, and state which I already own. I find these ideas all to be quite compelling: AOS, ROL, a new find CTSH, OZRK, JKHY, AVGO, UNH, CMCSA, ROST, another new find KINS, AFG, SNX, ICE, PRI, AON, and HII.

I already own, of the above: AOS, ROL, OZRK, JKHY, AVGO, UNH, ROST, AFG and SNX.

Without updating the timer yet, I do not think that this is a lo-risk entry opportunity. That came and went about 2 weeks ago. However, whenever you find something you really do want to own, I always advocate taking a token position, so that you begin to watch it more carefully, and then wait to add significantly to it later, as an opportunity might arise. It would not surprise me in the least if we were to see another such opportunity to arise in the fall of this year. They rather commonly seem to, and I’m willing to wait that long, or longer, if necessary.

Harold