One person's dividend portfolio

Portfolio yields about $3900/month after just 5 years of investing. The investor does share some of the main holdings which include funds SCHD, VIG, & JEPQ, plus individual stocks like JNJ, DUK, O, CSCO

I wonder, does he DRIP his dividends?

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Did you read the article?

The screenshots of his portfolio details shared by the investor showed his total portfolio yields about 2.16%. Based on this, the community members guessed the current total portfolio worth about $2.2 million and the investor said this estimate was roughly correct.

It is exceptionally easy to make $3900 month when you have $2.2 million in investments.

Guy could have just purchased Vanguard and made a little more:

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@Hawkwin - I did read the article. From a yield perspective, I get what you are saying. But, he started with $1.6M, so there has been some growth to get to $2.2M

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1.6 to 2.2 in five years is a CAGR of ONLY 6.57%. Are you claiming that is newsworthy or otherwise impressive?

Edit: And I will add, he started in March of 2020, probably the best possible entry point one could ever have. I made 60% that year.

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I think it is clear the individual is an experienced investor – not a novice. We don’t know his goals. We should admire his success and avoid criticism.

If his methods met his requirements that is great.

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@Hawkwin - Oddly enough, I had the same thought as you wrt the investor entry into the market. That was probably a great time to enter the market. Caveat that with, if one was not thinking about other things -e.g. Covid, masking, getting food, etc.

But per Paul’s points,

  1. The guy had a cash pile of over $1.5M to deploy @ age 50. That’s certainly above-average.
  2. $3900/month may meet his goals.

Sorry, the criticism is that this is newsworthy - as if it was a significant accomplishment that others would struggle to emulate.

If this was a story of a guy making $390 a month and that somehow grew $160,000 to $220,000, would you still consider him an experienced investor and think is story worth a financial article?

I wouldn’t.

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Personally, I avoid dividend income as much as possible and try to get most of my income in capital gains and tax-paid returns of capital.

I never see stories about that, but that’s how Warren Buffett made and kept his billions.

intercst

@intercst - Maybe the guy is trying to imitate you … just doing a really bad job on his picks for growth :slight_smile:

Does that take into account the $3900/month? If not, you could add about 3% to the CAGR. World beating? No. But considering they are living off their portfolio and it is still growing, worth talking about.

FWIW, my portfolio currently yields 3.8% (used to be almost 5% but a few stocks have had massive run ups.) and my dividend CAGR is 7% (used to be 8%). Pays for my needs and wants plus some leftover to continue to grow my portfolio beyond just the dividend growth.

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Unclear. The further one gets into the article, the sloppier it gets on data.

For example, in at least three different places, the author claims that the “Redditor” gets $3900 a month from a single position:

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is one of the Redditor’s biggest holdings, earning about $3,900 per month in dividends.
…
Industrial conglomerate 3M Co (NYSE:MMM) is a strong dividend-paying stock in the Redditor portfolio, generating about $3,900 in income per month.
…
Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) is among the Redditor’s biggest holdings, earning about $3,900 monthly in dividends.

He can’t possibly be getting $3900 a month from all three. For one, they don’t pay monthly dividends and even if this was quarterly income, then that would mean that he is getting no dividend income from the rest of his positions, including his largest positions, per the article.

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I’d guess that the author used an AI to [help] write the article. And the AI screwed up multiple times. And there are no more editors to catch errors, so it just goes out with all the defects and incorrect info.

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@MarkR - Or there might be the idea on the Interwebs that, repeat certain terms multiple times will increase hit-count on articles. This article chose “who earns about $3,900 in monthly dividend income” or some variation, for their key phrase