VINDICA

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. June Update: Martina Navratilova was an early harbinger of change (see this month's story at the end of this post).  I feel June similarly, is an early harbinger of change in the market. My May update had the following comments: For the third straight month, the Speculative portfolio continued to bleed while the Dividend portfolio continued to push ahead of even its pre-pandemic highs.  The Speculative portfolio has now lost all its gains.  June saw what could be the beginning of a reversal and the return of a risk appetite.  The Dividend portfolio did not exactly fall, but it stagnated.  The Speculative portfolio did not jump, but it did show signs of life.  This is a market looking for direction and my bet is that a shift is imminent....

Truth Always Wins 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. May Update: May continued the trend from March and April.  For the third straight month, the Speculative portfolio continued to bleed while the Dividend portfolio continued to push ahead of even its pre-pandemic highs.  The Speculative portfolio has now lost all its gains.  I am no longer playing with house money! I have so far not sold anything in my Speculative portfolio.  As discussed previously, I plan to be fully invested all the time.  If I sell any of these stocks now, then what do I buy?  Every speculative investment is falling.  Even BitCoin is falling! Stock of the month: DVN - I had purchased this stock just before the pandemic at $24 a share, only to see oil stocks plummet.  It kept going down and fi...

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 ret...

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. March Update: From the February post - I wonder if strong gains in the dividend portfolio in Feb is in fact a ill omen for the market as a whole in March. It is not really bear territory for the market as a whole, but it certainly was deep recession for the Speculative portfolio.  It lost almost 30% from its peak, losing heavily almost every trading day of the month.  The funny thing is that it is still 14% up since Jan 1st.  I would have been better off sitting out March.  But I am not better off than if I had not started investing at all in January.  In fact, in my sedate index portfolios, I would have been delighted to be up 14% in 3 months! See my notes below from March 8th, right at the beginning of the month, when the writing seemed to be...

See first post on this series for background on the Dividend Portfolio and the Speculative Portfolio.  S&P 500 moved up a gentle 1% in Feb.  Nasdaq moved down a gentle 1.5%.  But what an explosive month it was!  The speculative portfolio swung 10% up and down on some days.  It was stomach churning experience, even though as I mentioned in my introductory post, the Speculative portfolio is only 10% of my investments and the swings are largely inconsequential for my overall financial well being.  I tried my best to stick to the investment thesis and to learn. CNN Fear and Greed Index started the month at 35 (0 being extreme fear), while the market was close to all time high.  Too much fear considering how small the drop in the last couple of days of Jan have been relative to the massive 2020 bull market.  Likely GameStop was rattling everyone.   The month ended with more jitters.  However, the Fear and Greed Index has actually swung t...