Hey guys,
I’m back in action with another portfolio update this week. The market continues to slowly climb up on the heels of stimulus money and companies with strong price to earnings ratios. The economy seems to be humming, and the stock market reflects that optimism.
Over the last couple of weeks, the financial news that I want to comment on most is AT&T’s decision to sell Warner Media to combine that business with Discovery into a new media conglomerate. I was really disappointed in this move because the two primary reasons why I bought AT&T stock are gone. First, I bought AT&T because of it’s massive dividend at over 6%. The company was the staple of my Stable Yield slice of my portfolio, where the dividends paid are the primary factor in that slice. With the spinoff of Warner Media, the company is likely to slice its dividend in half. Secondly, it had a massive growth potential business under its umbrella in Warner Media, which has been promoting and Scaling HBO Max as a competitor to others. How often can you find a company with a large dividend, and a really large growth business under its umbrella? Not very often. However, let this be a lesson to folks who are purchasing individual stocks: be weary of high dividends and companies with large amounts of debt.
Do I understand why their leadership made this decision? Yes. However, I and I suspect many others will likely sell out of the stock because of this. If the principle of my portfolio didn’t involve making a commitment with no selling for an entire year, I would sell out of the company. It’s safe to say I likely won’t be including it as prominently, if at all in next year’s portfolio. Does this mean the company won’t do well in the future? Of course not, but the behavior of the stock no longer serves the purpose for which I bought it.
As I’ve done with most of these updates: I want to share my progress on my goal of beating the S&P 500 with my portfolio.
- S&P 500 from January 4th – May 29th: +13.89% ((386.13 – 339.03) / 339.03) x 100
- My portfolio from January 4th – May 29th: +14.28% ((51,783.17 – 6,000 – 482.92) – 39,641.18) / 39,641.18 x 100
Boom! I’m back in front. Holding a big portion of Beyond Meat in my Moonshot Growth portfolio has definitely helped my overall gains this week, as BYND has risen almost 40% in the last week.
Also, check out this cool new chart I made on Excel. It tracks my blog entries over the year and tracks the performance against the S&P 500 so you guys can see it visually. Moving forward, I plan to update this graph as I make new updates on my portfolio.
Check out my full portfolio holdings here: https://m1.finance/awNd6cXLSiWt
Until next time.
Roth and Roll Finance 