Stock Portfolio Update July 2019

Another month, another update. Here it is my Stock Portfolio Update for July 2019.

If you are a new reader, be aware that my stock portfolio is just one of my 5 basket total portfolio. While I have a decent exposure to the Stock Market, I also have other investments.

For me personally, I consider reviewing my portfolio a good exercise and part of a learning process. It forces me to look to each position and see the impact of it on my portfolio.Every month I review my stock portfolio and if you missed my last Stock Portfolio Update you can find it here.

Since I am adding funds to this account every week or so and, therefore, adding to existing positions or opening new positions, it makes sense I review it at least once a month.

My long term focus is a mixed bag of ETFs, dividend-paying stocks, blue-chip stocks, and a few growth stocks to hopefully beat the market in the long run.

Current Stats

Number of Stocks Holdings: 34
Number of ETFs Holdings: 3
Number of Dividend Stocks: 26
Cash Position: 20.65%

Top 3 Holdings:

1. Pfizer (6.44%)
2. Vanguard S&P 500 (5.09%)
3. Ing Group N.V. (4.02%)

There were some major changes in my top 3 holdings from last month.

New Positions

Mastercard

I really wanted to add a position in Mastercard. But as we can see it has been on a solid uptrend. It is a solid business model, it is considered a great growth dividend stock and I picked up a position on the small dip at the end of July. Currently only represents 2,03% of my portfolio and has a dividend yield of 0,47%.

UBS Group AG

I have also started a position on UBS. The financial sector in Europe is quite overblown. Low interest rates are squeezing margins and almost all listed European financial institutions, either banks or asset managers are quite undervalued.

As a long term investor, this looks to me the perfect time to be loading on these cheap stocks. Some of which are yielding over 5%.

At the end of July, it broke the lower channel and it is now oversold. Currently yields 6,31% and it fills 2,01% of my portfolio.

Citigroup

Citigroup was one of the banks under my radar and I did start a position in July. It has been on a solid uptrend, just around the 200-day moving average. It currently yields 3,09% and it represents 2,44% of my portfolio.

Seems I have increased the portfolio exposure to the financial sector so I plan to monitor my sector allocation on my next update.

Added Positions

ING Group N.V.

ING is having a rough ride. As stated above, there are a lot of undervalued stocks in my opinion in the European financial sector. I already had a position in ING and I added more into it on the last day of the month.

Lower interest rates are killing marging and operational profits but it will not last forever. Even if I think we are at the end of an economic cycle, lower rates will not be there forever.

Vodafone Group

Vodafone is one of my 5G plays. That being said, I have added more shares at around the $16 level. It now makes 2,79% of my portfolio.

Pfizer

Pfizer got crushed after earnings and after some (apparently) bad news. This is one of most interesting dividend stocks in the healthcare sector as far as I can tell. At almost a 4% yield, it is a bargain. Independently of the short term weakness, this a long term play.

This stock has outperformed the market as you can from the comparison below:

Portfolio 2 with 100% allocation to PFE has consistently beaten the market for more than 20 years so I am quite confident it will continue to do so. The healthcare sector is still a cash cow, and especially the big cap stocks.

Closed Positions

Now, let’s see what I have sold!

I have sold my position in Overstock (OSTK). I have traded this stock quite actively in July and ended up on a total profit of 62%. Just look to the crazy ride in the graph below:

Crazy uptrend pushed by high-volume. As far as I can tell, either there is a possible buy coming in for the it’s retail business unit or institutions are buying heavily on the traded security tokens story.

As far I can tell, Overstok is looking away from the reatil business and focusing heavily on the Blockchain initiatives. If this is good or bad we cannot really tell at this stage, but what we can see from the stock price is that something is either cooking or there is heavy manipulation on going.

Either way I am quite happy with my profits. Only if I could replicate this success every month, I would be way closer to financial independence.

Portfolio Performance

My current indicators:

• Portfolio Forward Dividend Yield = 3.89%
• Portfolio Theoretical YTD Return = +8.21% (includes new positions; excludes dividends, ETFs and sold positions)
• SPY ETF YTD Return = +16.69%

The performance mentioned above is just a theoretical YTD return on my current portfolio which does not reflect at all my real YTD returns since purchase. However, it helps me to blindly compare what would be my portfolio performance against the S&P 500 index ETF performance since the beginning of the year.

As mentioned last month, I want to start tracking my portfolio growth month-over-month so I can see both top-ups and dividends reflected on a nice graph. So the last day of June will be my starting point and next month I will be able to start tracking it.

Plan for August

Given the current status in the trade war and a possible application of new tariffs, I am likey to keep holding cash waiting for a possible 5 to 10% drop to start loading up on dividend stocks.

I might as well open a short position betting against the total market if the tariffs really kick in. What I consider valuable at this stage is to have cash available (around 20% in my case) and carefully plan the next move.

For some people, managing a portfolio is simply too much work and many times not worth it if we compare with the simple ETF approach. However, I find it extremely useful as a personal development tool and it will hopefully add value to my investing career.