Sector Watch & My Kids’ Portfolio : September Dividend Income Report Out

October 2017 is almost over and Halloween is the next major event for the kids. Shops in Belgium increasingly advertise to stimulate families to buy spooky goodies and costumes. There are now also scary Halloween night walking tours with candles and Halloween parties at schools.

In the meantime we keep an eye on the stock market and growing the portfolios. Did you know that there are 114.200 dollar multimillionaires in Belgium? On a population of around 11 million people, that is more than 1% of the population. The percentage grew last year 5%. Worldwide there was a growth of 7,5%. I am certainly not one of them ! Below you can see the amount of dollar millionaires per country.

So far our assumption that the volatility would come back in the coming months October to December has not become true but we still have two months to go until the year end.

Let’s take a look at the market sentiment

Market Sentiment and Sector Watch

For more than eight years now, the U.S. stock market has climbed higher without any major interruption. Investing during bull markets can be easy money for diversified investors. But long-term investors need to be prepared for the inevitable end of the bull market and make sure they are not caught off guard when the Wall Street tide turns.

The stock market is considered to be in a bull market once it has gained 20 percent from a recent low point. In the current bull market, the low point for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was March 9, 2009. On that date, the S&P 500 hit an intraday low of 666.79. In the eight years since, it has steadily climbed roughly 280 percent to above 2,500 for the first time without a single decline of at least 20 percent along the way.

Not only is the S&P 500 now more than 63 percent higher than its previous all-time high before the 2008 financial crisis, it is the second-longest bull market in U.S. history. The longest bull market ever lasted almost 10 years, from Oct. 11, 1990, to March 24, 2000. During that bull market, the S&P 500 gained a total of 417 percent.

Market bulls argue that, while stock prices may be expensive, the market shows no obvious signs of trouble. Republicans in US Congress have promised aggressive corporate tax cuts that could boost earnings substantially. Despite several interest rate hikes, rates remain historically low, giving investors few alternatives to stocks. The U.S. economy is growing and the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 16 years.

For now, the prudent approach to an expensive market is to expect the bull market to continue while being mindful of potential signs of trouble. So the conclusion for the market sentiment is clear…No worries so far ! The only way is UP !

Let’s take a look at the Sector Watch. Here we look which sectors we should invest in and what is different compared to last month. We placed the August and September Sector Watch below each other…This always you to make you your own analysis.

For the sectors XLB, XLE, XLY, XLI, XLY we saw last month an upwards trend and this is confirmed. Those trackers are further climbing in the green or jumped quickly in the green.

Last month blogpost we did research the Consumer sector XLY and we did identify the following opportunities (Tickers FXD, PEZ) for increasing stock gains. How did they perform ? Well, PEZ had a nice run up during the past two months…a 4 $ gain ! FXD had a 2$ run up …

Please note that we are not a financial advisor and do not recommend you to buy those ETF trackers if you don’t do your own homework. Read our disclaimer

We hope this market review was useful for you to understand market opportunities and how we analyse the sectors. .

Dividend Income Update

Now let’s take a look at the dividend income report of September 2017 for my kids’ portfolio!

Dividends received in September 2017

During the month of September 2017, we received 20,82$ dividend income.

Portfolio analysis and Growth

We now have 512,23$ dividends received on a starting amount of 10.000 EURO AFTER 9 MONTHS. The 2017 goal for my kids’ portfolio is to generate 600$ in the total year which equals to an investment return of 6%. We have now 85% ACHIEVED of our 2017 objective. We are slowing grinding to our yearly 2017 goal.

Going forward

We have a cash position of 3700 Dollar as we converted our remaining euros in dollars at 1,20 EUR/USD. Our total portfolio shows a value of 10.445 Euro which would translate in a 4,45% return Year to Date. This rate of return does not include the dividend we received so far.

Good luck with your personal finance strategy for your kids! Thanks for reading.

Putting money on a savings account for your kids is NOT a strategy to make it grow! 

Thanks for reading the blog post. We end with a quote we saw recently on Twitter..another funny one to think about !