Weekly Roundup - July 2, 2016

Happy Weekend!  Check out what's been going on in my world and some of the best articles from around the blogosphere.

Another week gone and another week without a baby.  We're actually glad we haven't gotten to meet our little one just yet because both my wife and I wanted the baby to be born in July, if we had a say in it.  If the baby happens to come on July 5th then it'll be pretty cool because that just happens to be my half birthday.  The really great news is that the baby officially turned itself and is no longer breech so now we're just in wait and see mode until the baby decides to join us.
Other than the U.S. markets almost completely recovering from the Brexit downturn it was a semi active week for my portfolio.  General Mills surprised me with another dividend increase, their second in as many quarters which was great to see.

The big banks also had the results of the Fed's stress tests and capital allocation plans were approved for my holdings in Wells Fargo, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan.  It's interesting to see the capital allocation plans from the 3 banks.  J.P. Morgan is keeping the dividend steady but increasing buybacks.  Wells Fargo said it received no objection to their plan but didn't give much guidance as of yet.  And Bank of America is increasing to its buyback program and also giving a long awaited boost to their dividend.  It might have taken a bit longer than I'd like, but a 50% increase will sure help to make up for the delay.

The other news from the week was Mondelez making an offer to buy Hershey.  The share price of Hershey jumped pretty big on the news, but this deal didn't have a real shot at being approved by The Hershey Trust which has something like 80% of the voting rights for the company.

This past week was much better in regards to being productive with my time while writing.  I finally got another stock analysis up, this one was on PepsiCo, and I hope to get back into a groove with that over the coming weeks.  I also got to meet up with my friend again to discuss a tool that I've got in mind for everyone to use and we ironed out how the database needs to be set up.  I'm hoping we can something put together soon to test the idea/concept.

Also, I'm still looking for sector/industry market returns since say the mid 90's until now or at least the mid 2000's.  If anyone knows where I can find that I'd truly appreciate it.

The Devil's Financial Dictionary by Jason Zweig (affiliate link) is a nice little time killer that gives brutally honest and often humorous definitions of different finance and investing terminology.

Today's word/definition is:

"Regression to the mean, n.: The tendency of above-average results to be followed by below-average results and for unusually bad outcomes to be followed by extremely good ones; the most powerful force in financial physics."

On to the Roundup

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

• A Look At PepsiCo's Cash Flow on Seeking Alpha
• Dividend Growth Investing At Work - 100+ Years and 2 Quarterly Raises

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 Real Risk Behind International Investing by Dividend Growth Investor

Dear Diary: I Dare You To Be You by FI Fighter

July 2016 Stock Considerations by DivHut

Outlook For July 2016 by Roadmap2Retire

2016 Blue Chip Stocks List: 3%+ Yield And 100+ Year Histories by Sure Dividend

Our Biggest Lesson From The Financial Crisis: Don't Bank On Going Back To Work by Our Next Life

Monthly Review: June 2016 by DivGro

Another Reason To Be Financially Independent by Tawcan

A Better Way To Achieve A Concentrated Portfolio by Financially Integrated

How To Build A Dividend Portfolio by Simply Safe Dividends

Recent Buy: Lazard (LAZ) by Income Surfer

Alphabet Stock: High Chance Of Outperforming The S&P 500 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.