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February 2018 : Investment Portfolio Status

February is almost over and it’s time for my monthly status update. Volatility has been the main story of this month. S&P 500 dropped 11.49% to a low of 2,542.92. It has recovered some of the losses and is only down 5.54% from the beginning of the month. It’s offered us a rare opportunity to buy stocks at a discount. Unfortunately, I was unable to add more during this downturn (due to lack of capital).


Dividends
My forward dividends reached $897.13. This is an 8.69% increase from prior month. I was able to convert my Vanguard Value Index Fund (VIVAX) fund to an ETF. This reduced my expense ratio to 0.06% from 0.18%, which increased my yield by 0.12%. My goal for 2018 is $1,500 in forward dividends. My forward dividends are at 59.81% of this goal.

My overall investment portfolio grew by 2.58%. This is by far the lowest month-on-month increase for my investment portfolio. I had a 5.80% growth in portfolio through infusion of new capital (inorganic growth). My portfolio dropped by -3.22% thanks to the drop in stock market.

Largest position in my portfolio is S&P 500 ETF (38.97%) and average expense ratio is 0.072%. I added a goal of being Financially Independent (FI) by 2032. With my current investments and dividends I am at 5.50% of FI.

Finally, I have also started funding my Roth IRA account.

Side Hustles
In addition to dividends I plan on including my side hustle income in my monthly summary. My side hustle income is from Swagbucks.com, TopCashBack.com, credit cards (cash back) and Raise.com. My total side hustle income for February was $37.64.






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Comments

  1. Money ProfessorMarch 1, 2018 at 7:43 PM

    What I love about this is the fact you add in your side hustle income. A lot of people talk the talk about side hustles but it's great to see you are actually making money from them. Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dividendgeekMarch 2, 2018 at 5:42 PM

      Thanks!. This was an inspiration from dividend diplomats. My side hustles might end up more than my dividends :-)

      Delete
  2. Tom @ Dividends DiversifyMarch 2, 2018 at 4:44 AM

    Nice job on the forward dividends Geek. Keep it up. Tom

    ReplyDelete
  3. PassivecanadianMarch 2, 2018 at 8:15 AM

    Nice geek. Great work lowering your expense ratios as well!

    Keep it up

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dividendgeekMarch 2, 2018 at 5:43 PM

      With Vanguard a drop in ER automatically increases Yield as ER is deducted from dividends :-)

      Delete
  4. SteveMarch 2, 2018 at 11:12 AM

    Hey DG,
    $1500 in forward dividends for 2018, nice ! Keeping those MER low will pay off in the long run.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dividendgeekMarch 2, 2018 at 5:44 PM

      Thanks Steve. Unfortunately, ER compounds as well as our investment :-) Need to keep it tight.

      Delete

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