My Own Portfolio : Dividend & Options Income Report Out June 2018

Our yearly summer vacation is coming soon and we saved each month to afford this relaxing time with the family. This is the triangle layer of our financial strategy where we save for an yearly objective ! Some families sell their furniture or put themselves in debt to go on vacation. Recently the global debt has hit another high, climbing to $247 trillion in the first quarter of 2018, according to a report published Wednesday 11th July. Of that figure, the non-financial sector accounted for $186 trillion.

The debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio has exceeded 318 percent, marking its first quarterly rise in two years, the report by the Institute of International Finance (IIF) said. This is amid record levels of corporate and household debt in many mature markets.

The corporate sector is highly leveraged and could be very vulnerable to higher interest rates going forward. Firms have used artificially low rates to borrow in the capital markets and only buy back stock in the equity market. The inherent instability of debt over equity financing suggests that the next downturn could hit investment spending unusually hard.

High-profile figures have issued stark warnings about the global debt load. The IMF’s first deputy managing director, David Lipton, told CNBC late last year that high debt and low interest rates posed the greatest market risks. On the USA front, U.S. National Security Director Dan Coats called America’s $21 trillion debt “a dire threat to our economic and national security.”

On the 1st of November 2017, I wrote the blogpost ” The 3 Biggest Potential Triggers for a Stock Market Correction ! “. Click below if you want to read again. The 3 dangers that I describe are bigger today as ever !

The 3 Biggest Potential Triggers for a Stock Market Correction !

Market Analysis

Yesterday President Trump did meet President Putin (Poetin in Dutch writing) and it seems he trusts Poetin more than his own intelligence and security agencies. Interesting how the world is evolving….this led to some force reactions in the USA and we will see if this will have an impact on the markets going forward.

When we analyse the performance of the SPY (screenshot 17 July) we notice the choppy markets continue. Last week the sentiment was encouragingly bearish and we are right now at a key resistance level of 280 $ for the SPY ETF and at the boundary of the rising channel as you can see on the chart. The 2017 uptrend remains in play. The focus will switch to the earnings season in July.

Now it is not a time to buy more stocks in the hope that this will go more up…be cautious. This is a choppy market and we could see a pull back if earnings start to disappoint. Keep an eye on the FANG (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google) stocks as they do have an impact on the market direction.

Long term holders can ignore the noise but nearly everyone else will need to pay attention to tactics.

Let’s dive in the numbers of my June Dividend & Options Income Report.

Options Income & Dividends received in June 2018

In June 2018 we received a total of 587,24 $ passive income. We received 389,87$ dividend income from monthly paying stocks or ETFs and 197,37$ from quarterly ETFs. AGAIN no options income as the transfer of our portfolio to our new broker is still not completed. Very very frustrating !

Below you see the monthly summary overview of the cash flow coming into my bank account.

Portfolio Analysis and Growth

So far we have 3983,78$ passive income for the year 2018. Last year we received 4985.62$ dividend income as we owned a lot of quarterly paying ETFs. So that is a $ difference of around 1000$. We missed twice so far our monthly goal.

We have 40% of our yearly objective in the books. We still need 6.000 $ to meet our yearly objective and we have 6 months to go….I need to work out a strategy to meet that goal. The passive income of almost 4000$ is more than the amount we spend on the rental for our vacation home. Isn’t that a great thought ?

The Euro/Dollar trend

We keep on following the EURO/USD valuation. The USD seems to be hovering around the 1,17 EUR/USD level. The predictions are that USD will get stronger going forward. The gold price is dropping as the USD gets stronger. So there is a co-relation there.

There are many headlines out there to suggest that the US dollar is going to soften longer-term. The United States economy is doing better than most others around the world, and of course the ECB is at least a year and a half away from raising interest rates. Longer-term fundamentals suggest that this pair should continue to go back and forth and perhaps even lower. The 1.15 level underneath is going to be a massive “floor.”

We will see how this EUR/USD price evolves over the coming months.

Going forward

Vacation period is coming soon for the family and that gives me time to read some books and follow some extra courses that I haven’t been able to do. My main focus is to learn the new trading platform of the new broker and learn some extra options investing strategies to complement the cash secured put strategy. I need to earn 6000$ in the coming 6 months ! Simple and straightforward goal.

Are you working out investment strategies ? Don’t hesitate to leave your comments and feedback. Let us know what you think.

Good luck with your personal finance strategy! Thanks for following us on Twitter and Facebook and reading this blog post. As always we end with a quote.

 Sources : CNBC