Weekly Roundup - February 6, 2016

Another week down and another crazy week for the stock markets.  The S&P 500 had the following returns this past week -0.04%, -1.87%, +0.50%, +0.15% and -1.85%.  All told it worked out to a 3.10% decline for the week.  It appears that January's poor month has spilled over into February, well at least the first week.  It looks like the markets are being controlled by two major themes/rumors.  One being oil which continues to be a drag with its relentless decline.  And the second being the slowing of the global economy and possibility of a recession coming.  Although as dividend growth investors it's important to focus on what really matters: dividends.  Your dividends don't fluctuate just because the markets are jittery.  If the companies you own are in sound financial shape and even growing operations you should use market fluctuations to your advantage and just collect your dividends while you wait for opportunities.

Blogging/Writing

I've been very busy this past week with writing and was finally able to wrap up my series on the CCC list and sector allocation.  Make sure you check out the 4 part series over on Seeking Alpha.  I'm also working on a couple analysis articles as well that I hope to finish up this weekend and a couple articles about personal finance/budgeting in general and some articles discussing dividend growth investing.  I've got a lot on my plate as far as writing is concerned but this weekend should be helpful in doing a lot of "pen to paper" (well, pixels to computer screen).

Self Improvement

I'm not 100% sure how well I've done with getting in better shape.  I mentioned last week how in my rush to get back to work I forgot my measurement tool at home.  I'm a big fan of setting SMART Goals and that means you need specific ways to measure and quantify your progress.  I have the quantify down but am without means to do the measuring part for now.  Although I should be able to go home next week and get a chance to see the results.  Speaking of goals I still need to get my 2016 goals out to all of you so you can help keep me accountable.

So for now I can only go based off visuals and how my body feels.  But the good news is that my body feels much better.  It seems like every day it gets a little bit better.  I'm still slacking on my kettle bell workouts but I've started walking most days up and down the road while listening to some podcasts.  It's a great way to improve my health as well as my financial knowledge and even boost up my motivation for both so it's a win win win situation.

Portfolio News

There were no purchases this week yet again, that's likely to be a trend for the first half of this year which I'll be detailing in an upcoming post.  The dividends kept rolling in which is awesome and I received over $100 this week from doing nothing related to my work or blogging.  That's awesome as far as I'm concerned.  There was even a solid 8.3% dividend increase from one of my holdings which was icing on the cake.  My portfolio will just keep chugging along and paying me cold, hard cash and even boosting up my payments until I can get back to regular investing again.

The big news for many DGI portfolio's came from ConocoPhillips (COP) and their decision to slash the quarterly dividend from $0.74 to $0.25.  Ouch!  Shares closed down over 6% yesterday after the news broke but in all honesty no one should have been surprised.  The current low oil environment shows no signs of ending and COP had to resort to asset sales and increasing debt in order to fund operations and their dividend.  Something had to give and in the end the dividend had to be cut.

Luckily though I closed out my position in ConocoPhillips (COP) in December 2015 (I meant to get an article written up about it but didn't have the time) due to very real concerns of a dividend cut as well as other factors at play.  I'm not trying to toot my own horn for getting out ahead of the cut because I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. *cough* Kinder Morgan *cough* But the debacle with KMI taught me a very valuable lesson and that's to examine the numbers myself and don't take managements word as gospel.

Despite a large decline from the highs for COP I was still able to eek out a 2.2% internal rate of return so at least my capital didn't suffer a big loss and I still own my stake in Phillips 66 (PSX) which has done really well so far.  Although I need to examine their own financials to see how they fit in my portfolio.

On to the Roundup

In case you missed them, here's the posts from Passive-Income-Pursuit this past week.

• Dividend Update - January 2016
• Data Mining the CCC List: Part 3 - The Champions on Seeking Alpha
• Dividend Growth Investing at Work - 58 Years of Dividend Growth
• Data Mining the CCC List: Wrap Up on Seeking Alpha

Also, be sure to sign up to receive posts via email and to follow me on Twitter@JC_PIP so you don't miss anything.  I also started a Facebook page to give people another option for keeping up to date on posts and happenings with the blog.

Once again I'd like to say thanks to each and every one of you that read, commented, and shared posts from here this past week.  I think this dividend growth investing and financial independence community is amazing and the openness from everyone is awesome.  Thanks again!

Now on to the links!

The Incredible Growing Dividend by A Wealth of Common Sense

Is Chevron's Dividend Safe? by Roadmap2Retire

Concentrated vs Diversified Dividend Investing by Dividend Growth Investor

Warren Buffett's 3 Cornerstones of Sound Investing by Sure Dividend

Dividend Income Update - January 2016 by DivHut

I'm Outta Here by Income Surfer

Metrics: 10 Year Trends for DGI Stock Analysis by Div4Son

Mapping Out Our First Year of Early Retirement by Our Next Life

Let's Stop Choosing by Eat the Financial Elephant

Start a Business to Save on Taxes and Help Take Care of your Family by Financial Samurai

Lessons I've Learned on my Journey by Dividend Hustler

Portfolio Allocation: The Tweaks I'm Making by Financially Integrated

Researching United Technologies: Here's How I do it by Chuck Carnevale on Seeking Alpha

Warren Buffett Investing Lessons from 1977 and 1991 by The Conservative Income Investor

Also, if you're looking for investment ideas, A Frugal Family's Journey keeps a list of stock analyses and recent buys from fellow bloggers.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Image courtesy of Gubgib on FreeDigitalPhotos.net.