April 2021 Update - A Small Experiment


Background:

Dividend Portfolio - Dividend Growth Stocks.

Speculative Portfolio - Good companies that are richly valued high growth companies.

Both portfolios were started with 10% of my liquid assets each on Jan 1st 2021.


April Update:

After a few months of frantic activity, April felt like a bit of a snooze.  The markets went up and down, but mostly sideways.  The shift from risky stocks to safer ones continued unabated.  My Dividend Growth portfolio duly registered a small increase, while the Speculative Portfolio went down a bit.  Both changes where milder compared to March.

Earnings are starting to come and and company after company is beating estimates.  However, the market continues to be unimpressed.  The pressure, if anything seems downwards.  Given the market valuations, it may be a good thing if the market moves sideways in the face of increasing earnings.  However, it is unclear of any of this will make the appetite for risky stocks return to the levels seen in 2020.


Stock of the month:

NVDA - it is down 5+% from peak, but it is still the best performing holding in a month where most of my stocks struggled.  The main driver was the company dipping its toes into the server chip market.


Numbers since Jan 2021:

S&P 500: 12.98%

Nasdaq Composite: 9.96%

Dividend Portfolio: 24% (up from 21% end of March)

Speculative Portfolio: 10.3% (down from 14.7% end of March)


Long Reads for the month

Too Good To Be True • Novel Investor

Click Bait:

A Mathematician on Wall Street predicted Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi Scheme in 1991 - 18 years before Madoff turned himself in to regulators!

The Mother of All Accidents - Issue 99: Universality - Nautilus

Click Bait:

Humans may never have existed if the dinosaur killing astroid had arrived 1/2 hour early or late.

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