Fintech: Silicon Valley Takes On Wall Street

Capital One 360 – $200 Money Market Bonus (1% APY & Requires $10,000 Deposited)

Use invitation code 200STRONG to open your 360 Money Market and earn your $200 bonus (when you deposit $10,000 or more by March 31, 2017). I already have a money market account :-(

Click: 200STRONG

Vanguard ETFs®

Why Invest In Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF

Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF seeks to track a benchmark that provides exposure to U.S. companies that have a history of increasing dividends. The fund focuses on high-quality companies that have both the ability and the commitment to grow their dividends over time (at least ten consecutive years of increasing annual regular dividend payments).

Yield: 2.14%
Expense ratio: 0.09%
Number of stocks: 186

Diversification

Top 10 holdings

It is well diversified and quality play.

Source: Vanguard

VF Corp

Big surprise!. I have recently added VFC.

It goes against my investment philosophy. I have tried out buying individual stocks before and my conclusion was I suck at picking stocks. After that I have been concentrating on holding low cost index funds (boglehead).

However, I did own some VFC @ 66 which I could not sell. For sometime time i have been thinking about doubling down on it to decrease my average price. @ 49 I could not resist. I have added to this position but, I am not planning to make it a part of my regular dividend stream. So, I will not be adding it my portfolio.

On a separate note, I got some success in getting Mrs. DG invested in mutual funds. She is now investing in VFINX . It's a small position, but a good start.

Project FI

After some thought I have recently switched to Project Fi network. Project Fi is a wireless service from Google. Project Fi automatically connects you to the best available signal, whether that's Wi-Fi or one of our three 4G LTE partner networks. It uses T-mobile, US Cellular & Sprint network. It's obviously a technology demonstrator. Getting CDMA & GSM work together is awesome!

The best thing I liked about Project Fi is that I get credited for the data I don’t use. Unlike AT&T where the date gets rolled over. With Project Fi I only pay for the data that I use. This is important for someone like me, I use data rarely and I want data available on demand. With my previous AT&T plan I purchased a 100 MB plan for 5$, I used 100 MB of it during travel. However, the rest expired after a month. This is one of the primary reasons for shifting to Project Fi.

My previous AT&T plan costed me 27$ inclusive of taxes (unlimited text and talk plan). My new Project Fi plan costs me 35$ (inclusive of taxes). 35$ includes 10$ that i pay for the Nexus phone I purchased (interest free financing). So, over the next two years I will end up paying 8$ more than I payed with my previous plan. That comes out to be about 8X24=192$. When I looked up on Ebay/Amazon the average cost of my phone (used condition) is about 250$. So, I see this is a profitable deal. BTW, my previous phone was IPhone 5, which I have had since 2012. I have been up for a phone upgrade for sometime now. When I add Mrs. DG to my plan, it will cost me extra 15$ (big savings!).

Source: Fi

Investment February 3, 2017

I do not follow any techniques to pick stocks. My investments are boring :). However, I am always happy to add to my existing positions. I had to cut down on my investment amount by about 25% due to some unexpected expenses.

Forward dividends: $250.26 per year



I also got my first dividend for 2017. It was from my Bond ETF. I got 1.63$, sets the ball rolling for 2017.