Trades

Before market open on Monday, August 22, 2022, Computer Services Inc [CSVI] announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by a couple of private investment firms, Centerbridge Partners, L.P. and Bridgeport Partners. The merger is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of this year and shareholders will receive $58.00 per share of CSVI. CSVI is the only Dividend King representing the Information Technology sector. I won’t lie, CSVI was a serious consideration as to why I thought building out this Portfolio for the Ages consisting of Dividend Kings was possible. In June, the market was significantly down for the year, and there were several Dividend Kings that were underpriced. CSVI was one of them, as evidenced by the acquisition price of $58.00 being 53% higher than the previous closing price of $37.88.

I chose not to launch the portfolio with an immediate acquisition of 10-12 stocks. Instead, I advocated a one stock per week approach because one never knows how the market will behave. Of course, the market reversed and for the first six weeks of the second half of the year, the portfolio snagged Kings as they were rising in price but not before they hit their estimated fair values. CSVI had actually drifted slightly lower. The rest is history. I missed the opportunity. And not just this time, but quite possibly forever. Not only are they priced just shy of their merger-defined fair value of $58.00¹, when the merger completes, CSVI will cease being publicly traded and a Dividend King will be lost forever.

I’ve spent the following days searching for a suitable replacement from the Information Technology sector.

That search is over. Tuesday morning, Qualcomm Inc [QCOM] joins the portfolio.

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Dividend Stock of the Week [QCOM]Read More »

My market order to purchase 22 shares of MO executed at market open today for the price of $45.81. I updated the portfolio and summary by sector. Also, check out the portfolio’s performance to date. These exhibits will be updated periodically and will have more meaning as the portfolio grows.

This week’s pick is one of twelve Dividend Kings from the Consumer Staples sector. But of those twelve, only one other is trading below fair value and that’s Target [TGT]. As much as I love Target, especially at their current price, I am going with one that pays a massive 8.2% yield, highest amongst all Dividend Kings. In fact, on August 25, 2022, they announced their 57th dividend increase in the last 53 years. We want to remain defensive in this market, and this stock’s earnings were unphased in our last two recessions, climbing steadily year after year.

Monday morning, Altria Group Inc [MO] joins the Dividend King portfolio.

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My market order to purchase 14 shares of NFG executed at market open today for the price of $73.24. I updated the portfolio and summary by sector. Also, check out the portfolio’s performance to date. These exhibits will be updated periodically and will have more meaning as the portfolio grows.

Do you remember what you were doing on June 15, 2022? We should all remember. On that day, a company from Williamsville, New York, founded in 1902, announced an increase to their dividend. They have paid a dividend for 120 consecutive years and this increase is the 52nd consecutive annual increase in the dividend. Think about that. When they began paying a dividend, the U.S. was still minting the Indian Head penny.

This week’s Dividend King operates in four business segments, one of which is Utilities. I think this might be why they’ve been misclassified as a Utility stock on TD Ameritrade. Yahoo! Finance has them correctly labeled as an Energy company. Energy companies are notorious for inconsistent earnings, because their performance is sensitive to a host of economic factors that are out of their control. It very likely explains why there is only one Energy company in the list of Dividend Kings. Only one.

Monday morning, National Fuel Gas Company [NFG] joins the Dividend King portfolio.

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My market order to purchase 7 shares of PPG executed at market open today for the price of $135.22. I updated the portfolio and summary by sector. Also, check out the portfolio’s performance to date. These exhibits will be updated periodically and will have more meaning as the portfolio grows.

What do the following numbers have in common? 139, 496, 51, 62. Give up? One hundred and thirty-nine years ago, in 1883(!), Pittsburgh Plate Glass was founded by Captain John B. Ford and John Pitcairn in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1898, it began a streak of paying quarterly dividends that persists to this day, 496 quarters later. With their dividend increase in 1971, it began a streak of increasing the dividend payout annually. On July 21, 2022, they announced a three-cent increase to their 62 cents per share quarterly dividend, marking the 51st consecutive year of increasing their dividend.

Now known as PPG Industries, Inc [PPG], it is the largest paint and coatings company in the world, with 240+ manufacturing facilities in 59 countries and operations in 75 countries. The global headquarters is still in Pittsburgh. I missed the first 50 years of this streak, but I think it’s time to get in on the action.

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My market order to purchase 7 shares of ABBV executed at market open today for the price of $138.04, unchanged from Friday’s closing price. I updated the portfolio which includes a summary by sector. Also, check out the portfolio’s performance to date. These exhibits will be updated periodically and will have more meaning as the portfolio grows.

This week’s Dividend King is a bit of a surprise. It spent the first three months of 2022 ignoring the rest of the market and soared from $135 to $175. Eventually, the market got to it. The market considered the last two quarterly earnings announcements to be underwhelming, and the price has come nearly all the way back down. I’m very excited about this. Last week I mentioned that the Utility sector was overpriced on the whole, but I found one utility out of six that was attractively priced, Black Hills Corporation [BKH]. The same can be said of the Health Care sector. There are four Dividend Kings in the Health Care sector as of the time of this writing. Three of them seem to be a bit above their fair value. This isn’t a surprise.

When inflation runs hot and money gets tight, people think twice about pulling the trigger on getting a new mattress or taking a vacation. But the demand for certain services is inelastic. Consumer staples, utilities, and health care services are must-haves. Investors migrate to companies in these sectors as the economy slows down or enters a recession. It’s the smart thing to do. The Dividend King of the Week is really more of a Prince. It is the offspring of another Dividend King, Abbott Laboratories [ABT]. So, get your knees oiled, get your waist oiled – you’re going to be doing an awful lot of bowing . . . to Abbvie Inc [ABBV].

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Dividend King of the Week [ABBV]Read More »

My market order to purchase 13 shares of BKH executed at market open today for the price of $77.00. I updated the portfolio which includes a summary by sector. The portfolio’s performance to date can be found here. These exhibits will be updated periodically and will have more meaning as the portfolio grows.