This week is the first of three ‘off’ weeks intended to restore the $250+ per week pace of investment which became necessary with the establishment of a position in BDX. Read on to find out which position would have been most worthy of new money.
This week, five of the portfolio holdings ranked in the Top Ten: BDX, FMCB, MDT, PPG, and SJW.
| Ticker | Account Value |
| BDX | 1,353.36 |
| FMCB | 3,118.50 |
| MDT | 2,226.96 |
| PPG | 3,476.76 |
| SJW | 3,422.79 |
No surprise, the lowest amount belongs to BDX. There is nothing precluding further investment in that position, other than it being an ‘off’ week. All that remains to discuss is FMCB.
For the past two weeks, Royal Dividends has had an outstanding GTC order to purchase 1 share of FMCB for no more than $975. The past two weeks have been decidedly difficult as the stock market has abandoned value and dividend stocks in favor of the Magnificent Seven and their kind. The failsafes, the saviors.
On 2024-11-29 SPXEW reached an all-time intra-day high of 7,612.31 and has closed just 10 trading days later at 7,363.12, a decline of -3.27%. Over that same period, SPX has risen 0.11%. That’s a significant divergence and all one can do is rest in the knowledge that there will come a time when the rest of the market catches up in a bull market or outperforms in a recession. It is a rare time when companies like GRC or PPG surpass AMZN and AAPL when those companies are steadily climbing. No, the far more likely result is for such companies to close the gap of performance in the worst of times, by outperforming when the markets go through rather large corrections.
Speaking of corrections, FMCB is behaving as expected.
FMCB has come down quite a bit and still has plenty to more to come down before it triggers the order. FMCB is still in the Top Ten and so I see no reason to pull the plug on the order or even to adjust the offer price at this time. Let’s be patient.