I’m No Benedict Arnold

Update: 12/23/2015

Well, my shares of T in my trading account were sold today. It has been quite a while since I was above my purchase price in my trading account. However, I have made many good trades in the past year, and I have collected some nice dividends.

Anyhow, today saw a nice run in almost every stock. My positions in every stock I hold saw an increase. However, one thing I noticed was a relatively low volume being traded in each position. Low volume along with a nice increase in stock price leads me to believe this was not a real bullish move up. What I would have liked to see was a big move in stock price on heavy volume, but that is not what happened. In my opinion, the move up could be short lived. So, I decided to take the profits and place a new buy order.

I sold my 1191 shares of T in my trading account at $34.70. Once the sale was made, I instantly placed a buy order for 1215 shares of T at $34. I feel that T has made a big move to the upside in the past few days and I did not want to let the profits slip away.

Since the money is in an IRA, it is all mine. The trade resulted in just over $234 and a .55% gain. Although it resulted in less than my goal per trade of 1%, as far as percentages go, I made the trade so that I might be able to take advantage of any drop in the price of the stock. Afterall, the purpose of my trading account is to trade and to make money by accumulating more shares of the stock through trading and dividend reinvestments.

I made the decision to sell close to the dividend date, because, I made the decision to trade the money from the beginning. I am going to try my best to continue trading the stock and try to accumulate as many shares as I possibly can. There have been so many times when a stock has risen day after day only to lose it all back. I really want to try to mitigate some of those losses by attempting to lock in the gains and then jump back in on days when the market gets hit.

Just a few weeks back, the market was crippled in just a few days, and now, those days seem so far away. I am sure that the same thing will happen many times in the future, so I want to try to capitalize on some of those moves. There is no right or wrong in the stock market. Stocks go up and they go down- That is the nature of the beast. However, I made the decision to give it a shot at trading a certain amount of money, and parlay the proceeds as best as I possibly can.

I have my limit order in with the hopes of filling on a gap down. Regardless, the limit price is adjustable. As long as I aquire more shares on the purchase, I will end up with more shares, and as a result, I should be able to ultimately collect more dividends over time. We shall see how it goes. Hopefully, the order fills tomorrow. If not, I have almost 2 weeks before the Jan 6  xdiv date to buy shares in order to collect the dividends.

In my book, a profit is a profit, so I made the decision to sell. I know I did not get the most I could have gotten today, but that is where greed sometimes ends up ruining a trade. I made a plan, and I plan to stick to it.

Update: 6/4/2015

Going against my strategy a bit and holding onto my trading shares a little while longer. I was lucky to get back in when the stock bounced at about $34.25 and have held tight for the last few days. I was anticipating a little move if the Direct TV deal came through, and things are starting to buzz in the past few days.

We will soon see how it goes. Also, I have been busy with a derelict tenant. I had to file for eviction and hopefully they are now gone before the court date. I am going to post some stuff about that fiasco soon. Good luck.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

Update 5/29/2015

Back in the saddle!

Picked up 1077 shares of T at $34.57. Not exactly the price I was looking for, however, I ended up with 11 more shares than I had two days ago and my forward dividend income is now $2024.76. This represents a 1.03% increase in shares held over the amount from two days prior.

I wanted to be back into the stock in case the Direct TV deal goes through and is announced soon. T might get a pop if that happens. Also, the dividend is going to be coming in the next month or so, so I have the opportunity to get that if the price flounders.

I am very happy right now. We are now at a regional beauty contest for my daughter. It is an all weekend deal, and orientation is happening now. Hopefully, things go well. Good luck to all.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

Update 5/27/2015

Nice move on T. Sold shares at $34.97. Nice turn for a gain of $0.68/share in one day. Happy camper right now. I will update the totals when I get a chance. Good luck.

Obviously, using this phone for bold results in evert hinges going bold. Won’t do that again. Take it easy.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

Update 5/26/2015

Made an opening trade in T this morning. As a matter of fact, I made two openings. One in my trading account and one in a Roth.

The trading account is now sitting at 1066 shares of T. That is up from 1054 last week. So, the trade purchase added 12 shares to my total, and my dividends will increase by $22.56 annually. Not a bad turn in just a few days.

I have been extremely happy with the progress of this little experiment. It may not be the best way to trade or invest, but it is allowing me to accumulate shares in a company that I plan to hold if the stock price turns south.

At the present share level of 1066 (Battle of Hastings ring a bell), I am now looking at collecting $2004.08 annually. I have now crossed the $2000 level in forward dividend income in my trading position. That is quite better than I expected a few weeks back. As a matter of fact, just a few weeks ago, I was holding an upside down position, but as soon as it started to move, I started to trade again.

No matter how it turns out, I am happy with the results so far. My next trade, if it happens, will put me over $37,000 in cash in my trading account, and my new goal before the first twelve months of trading is now to be at $40,000. That would be a 9.5% gain from where I was this morning before I initiated the trade. Sounds like a lot to ask for, but it is just 8 in and out trades away at a 1% return.

Also, I have been trading in this account since 10/7/2014 when I made my initial purchase in order to follow this strategy. So, I still have a little over 4 months to reach my goal of $40,000. 2 trades a month will get me there. Also, the dividends will help to push it higher, by almost reducing the trades by 2 for a total of 6 to reach my goal. We will see. Good luck to all. Keep in touch.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

Don’t know what happened with the bold type, but it won’t go away or stop. I am trying to fix it, but I guess working on a phone has its issues. It will not stop, so I am making the best of it. Good luck.

Update: 5/20/2015

Well this little move just added well over 1.3% to my trading account. I just had to make the trade and live to fight another day. I bought in yesterday at $34.17, and in just a few hours, I was up almost $500.00. The best part about it is that the trade is in an IRA- so no taxes. Now, the money can be used to buy more shares if the price dips a bit.

The dividend payment in 3 months would be $495.38, and it is not getting paid for over 2 months. So, it is a no brainer to take the cash in less than a full day. Now, at the end of this day, I will be able to put in an order to buy tomorrow since the first sale on Monday will clear, and the funds will be settled. This week has certainly been nice. We will see how it goes from here.

Since I am on the road to the Rush concert in Houston, connections are in and out. I tried to sell the other shares I bought yesterday in another account for $34.71, but the order did not process, so those shares still exist to try tomorrow. So, if we are up tomorrow, I sell in the other account, If we go lower, I will buy back in this account. Either way, I win.

The only downside is if the shares move up significantly after I sell them. In that case, I have a plan to start trading another stock that is range bound and has been hammered down a bit. NOV is the next potential trading stock. However, I am not there quite yet. I still see lots of potential in T. So, that is where I stand as of now. Good luck.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

Update: 5/19/2015

Back in on T at $34.17. I have been rolling the dice as often as possible, and the shares have been building on themselves. With the added dividends, the total trading shares in my trading account have increased steadily for the past few months.

Regardless how the stock trades, I am going to be collecting more dividends each quarter, so I am happy. I have so much to do in the summer months, but every once in a while, I can get a chance to make a trade or so. Good luck to all.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

Update: May 18, 2015

Finished 2 trades in my trading account. The value in the account is now at $36078.80. I got out on the last trade at basically the price of the close. I wanted to keep the sell order at $35.00 on T, but it moved up by a big margin in a short time, so I just let it go. I have to work during the day, so I do not have time to watch all day to adjust the price. So, I decided to just take it, and live to fight another day.

The market has been on a nice upward direction, however, a breather can come at any time. So, I now have a little cash in order to take advantage of any weakness. We will see how that goes. Either way, I am happy. Good luck to all. Let me know if you are trading anything in addition to adding shares to the accounts.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

5/5/2015

Bought 1048 shares of T in my trading account today. Although I did not get any of the real cheap shares, I now have more than I had a few weeks back. I bought 1000 shares in a trade and acquired 48 through dividend reinvestment. We will see how it goes.

Now, even if I get caught upside down, my annual dividend sits at $492.56. This is up from 988 shares on 5/1/2015 which had an annual dividend of
$464.36. The new annual dividend is 6.1% higher than it was just over a week ago.

Good luck to all.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

Update 5/3/2015

These are the totals from my trading account. The totals do not include the dividends that have been collected in the past week because they are still sitting in my FRIP account. Once the dividends buy shares of T at I hope
a more favorable price, that money will be added to the total. We will see how it goes.

So far, today has been a nice day for AT&T. The stock moved to the upside after meandering on Friday. However, I am still feel that the stock is going to trade in the 34-35 range in the next few days. I have a buy in for 1000 shares at $34.19. That is a real milestone. I will hopefully soon trading over a thousand shares of T on a regular basis in my trading account. With the shares purchased with the $464.36 dividend, the total number of shares could be roughly 1013. I will keep you updated. So far, this strategy is working out just fine. It is just a matter of me being willing to pull the trigger on the buy, as well as, being willing to sell. Good luck to all.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

5/2/2015

Well, I made round trips in both of my accounts that bought T. I sold at $34.36. I had to take the cash. On a nice up day for the Dow, T was a dog. So, I did not want to be losing any profits if we get a little sell off monday. A gain is a gain, and I made a nice gain in only about 2 hours, so I took it. I now am able to fight another day with the cash in my pocket. Still at the contest, and it will be a long day. I will post all the numbers if I get a chance this evening. Good luck to all.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer
I also added 225 shares of T at $34.14 in a Roth IRA about a minute ago.

Update 5/1/2015 noontime

Just picked up 995 shares of T at $34.19. Last week, I had 988 shares in that account. Now, I have 7 more shares and will be collecting $13.88 extra in dividends annually without dividend reinvestments. Factoring that in, it will be slightly more. New tires, nice stock trades, going on a trip- what else can I ask for? Well, off for the drive. Good luck to all.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

5/1/2015 early morning

Last week, I sold my T shares in my trading account and booked the profits.
I currently have open orders available for T shares at 34.09. I will post updates to the trades and the profits when I get time. I am still waiting on tires. I have been here for 3 hours already. It will probably be another hour or 2. Anyway, good luck to all.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer
AKA — Seeking Dividends

Follow me on Twitter– Seeking Dividends@DividendDreamer

Update: 2/12/2015

Totals as of today for my trading strategy. Notice that I added cash to the trade, so the amount has increased for each trade.

Also, notice that has put me way down the list on trades that I need to make to get to my goal. I effectively bought myself the last 70 trades or so. Now, I am about 423 trades away from my 500 1% trades goal. I never finished filling in the sheet, but you can see I am now beyond the total where I figured I would be after 77 trades. I will try to fill it in a bit tonight.

Steady as she goes. I am hoping to be able to put my 2015 contribution in soon and get to an even higher trading value. We will see how it goes.

Good luck.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer

Update: 11/21/2014

Full round trip on GE in the past couple days. Bought 492 shares at $26.60 and sold at $26.94. I cleared a total of $167.51 on that trade bringing my total cash position from $13098.54 to $13258.82. This trade came in at 1.27%. Right on the good side of the target for this trade.

Also, all throughout the day and and the day before, I was up in the air about closing out a position in an account for GE. I wanted to pull the trigger so bad, but I just could not bring myself to do it. I wanted to sell many times during the day at $26.98 with the hope of grabbing it back on a quick drop, but with thanksgiving coming next week and the possible dividend increase in the next few weeks to follow, I feel that the stock might have a little room to run. It has been struggling for quite some time, but this quarter ought to be very good. That, in addition to a nice dividend increase, might lead to some nice gains that I could miss if I sold off, and the stock took off in the time before my funds are settled. So, I am glad I made a nice trade with the T stock and I am happy with the results. I am glad that I made positive improvement in my portfolio, and each gain gets me one step closer to being Financially Independent. My dad used to tell me, “Rome was not built in a day” and “Even the biggest projects have to be built one step at a time.” I sure do wish he was here right now, but in a strange way, I feel his presence when I am reminded of the things he taught me and the things we did together. Well, off to another football game.

Have a good weekend.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer

Update 11/13/2014 11:31 PM

I have been getting a few questions about trading so frequently. I can only answer these with the trades are part of a plan to follow a specific strategy that could lead to some fantastic gains if the trades are performed according to the plan. I am actually buying stock that I want to own, so if the price falls, I am collecting dividends like everyone else. If I get a little bump in the price, I am going to take it. The trades are in an IRA, so the money is able to be put right back into the stock market after the funds are settled. I look at it this way. If I am buying a stock that pays almost 4% per year and I am compounding the dividend on a quarterly basis, if I can get a “dividend” payment in a matter of days after the purchase by selling the stock, I am going to do it. This is only being done with money that is to be used for this purpose and not any of my long term investments. It is just another stream–it might be a river one day. The biggest thing I hear is that if I sell, I will miss out on the big gain if there is one down the road. That is true. However, if I were to be able to actually perform the listed trades and truly complete the strategy to a few hundred trades, the big gain would never be that big for the stocks I am currently trading. I also happen to have positions in the very stocks I will use for this strategy. So, if the stocks run up, I will see it in my long term holdings. In a bull market, money seems come fairly easy. However, I think that if the market slows a bit, this strategy might work better than it has been. For a range bound stock, the prices rise and fall everyday. That is the nature of the market. So, I will keep plugging at it as long as I can make a clean trade, and if I get caught in a downturn, I will be holding more shares of stocks I currently own. Also, by buying stocks that I would hold anyway in order to collect the dividend, I do not feel compelled to sell if the price falls. If the company is sound, I should be able to collect dividends as usual. Sounds like a good strategy for me to give a shot. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. By the way, I will be contributing a max contribution as soon as the year turns and that will push the value of the account up so that I will be even further down the list on my trades. Early on, my yearly contributions will simply reduce the number of trades I need to make in order to get the 500 trades under my belt. So, adding $12500.00 to my simple IRA will effectively eliminate the need to make 53 trades and put me at the 57 trades under my belt level on the strategy. So, instead of trading $13,000 in a single trade, I will immediately go to $25,500. The amount will change, but the percentages will stay the same.  As I get further into it, the contribution becomes less and less able to eliminate trades from the strategy. However, I want to take as many trades off the board through contributions as I can. Although the trades will be larger in dollar amounts, I will still be looking for the 1.14% gain. I plan to stick with it as long as I am able to make sensible trades and I do not plan on chasing the market. I appreciate any thoughts on this matter.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer

Update: 11/13/2014

Just made my last round trip and netted $289.30. This was my 4th trade in the last month and it has put me well on my way to achieving my strategy. I bought 366 shares of T at $34.90 and sold them at $35.70. Waiting for the settlement dates is the biggest part of making this work. However, since the trades are in an IRA, no tax issues are involved. Just updated this again.

The value of the account is now $13098.54, up from $12809.36 since the last trade. That works out to be about a 2.26% increase since the last trade.

Now, I am waiting for the funds to settle in order to complete a new trade. I can buy in, but I need to wait until next week to sell. We will see.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer

Update: 10/21/2014

I sold my 495 shares of GE that I purchased for $24.73 at $25.28. I netted a total of $256.29. Also, the net gain on the trade was 2.09%. So now, the value of the account is now $12,520.09. The total net gain for the last 2 weeks has been $458.49 for a net 3.8% total gain since I started the strategy. So far, so good. Lots of trades to go, but the process is following the outline and is even ahead of the projected outcome. We will see.

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer

It is almost considered heresy to tell someone that you trade stocks. I have heard the sneers and comments for almost 20 years now. It almost seems that some people actually feel that there is something wrong with trading in and out of stocks. I know….I know….day traders were all the rage in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and many of them lost their shirts. Not hard to do when you go on margin and play with the house’s money. Things can turn bad and turn bad real quick. However, this article is not about day trading, but buying quality stocks that I am actually willing to hold, and then, if the circumstances work out, sell out the position and lock in the gains. I know, it can be a fool’s game, but remember, a gain is a gain and 1%-1.5% in a day or even a week is nothing to scoff at.

I started my investing life with the purchase of a little company called Skytel, back when cell phones just made calls, and pagers were all the rage. My initial investments were in 3 mutual funds and the rest of my funds were applied to purchase individual stocks. At the time, stocks were traded in fractions such as 27 1/8 or 27 1/4. At the time, the spreads were a bit wider and the prices tended to move up and down by $.125 to $.250 and more on each tick up or down and the spread was rarely less than 1/16 which equated to $.0625. 1000 shares with a $.250 gain resulted in a $250.00 gain (minus commission) or more if the uptick was greater than a 1/4. This happened all the time. I traded Skytel communications so many times, it became common knowledge why I was on the phone or connected to the phone line with my computer back then. I always used a limit order although I never was schooled in doing so. I just knew what I wanted to pay for the stock and what price I wanted to sell the stock. This process continued all the way until Skytel was acquired by Bell Industries and the honey hole closed up. I traded that stock over 200 times and made lot of money on that initial $10,000.00 roll. Sometimes, I traded that stock 3-4 times per day. Back then, you could trade with money before it was settled without issue. I had lots of thoughts about that at the time and got into many discussions with people about using money that was not settled to buy more stock and sell it before the first trade settled. I did not make the rules, I just did what was allowed at the time.

In 2001, all that started to change. Once stocks started trading in decimals, the spreads became tighter and spreads between the bid and the ask started being as tight as $.01. No longer could you make a round trip on a regular basis by just getting a nice uptick because the upticks were possibly only 1 cent. Not much meat on the bone. So, the time between trades started to increase. However, it still was very lucrative, and I did quite fine for a few years. At about the same time, free rides were being ever more frowned upon. I can remember the day when I got the notice on my account about “free riding,” and I abruptly stopped the practice and things were changed from that day forward. I no longer became interested in buying anything just for the sake of waiting until someone else allowed me to sell it. If the price spiked up, I was no longer allowed just to dump the stock and lock in the gain if funds were not settled. Also, if the stock suddenly dipped, if the funds weren’t settled, I was prevented from buying. That is when I just started to invest in only dividend stocks and just let things play out and reinvest the dividends.

Well, I feel that it is time to reevaluate exactly what I am doing and go back to my original plan and run both strategies at one time. My plan has always been to trade $10,000 in one trade and gain 1% or more plus commission and parlay it 500 times. Sounds crazy, but it can be done. I made the first 250+ trades in GE many years ago before I just went with the dividend reinvestment strategy 100%. A ton of those trades were in open accounts, so taxes took a bite and only a small portion was in my IRA. Things changed, and I got scared and went in other directions. Now, I have a good sum in my IRA, and I am now going to go back on that road a bit and start that process again. I made my first round trip yesterday and today with a buy in of $12061.50 and sold it for $12271.50. I have a few free trades and I wanted to use some of them. With that trade, I cleared 1.74% in one day. Not a great deal of money, but over time, it could and will really add up. Plus, I am only buying stocks for this strategy that I am willing to hold in an IRA, so no taxes as I make the sales. Therefore, less is needed on each roundtrip to compound the effect.

I actually calculated the value of each trade at 1.14%, which was enough to roughly cover the trade and result in a good return in the event of a sale and the ultimate dividend collection if the price went south. All of this was written down in pen on paper, but now I am attempting to do it on this phone. I am 1 trade into my new experiment, but I plan to try to give it a go. Either way, I am going to be owning the stock, but this will allow me to possibly push my yield higher. I am going to draw out a 500 trade spreadsheet so that I can track my progress. If it does not work out, I still will end up owning some nice dividend stocks, and if it works out….well, we will see.

Although 500 trades seems like quite a lot, I break up the trades into blocks of 10 which I call “Levels.” That way, goals are achieved not only after each successful trade, but after each successive level. Also, with added cash deposits, moving up to the next level is very easy during the first couple of hundred trades, thus lowering the trades needed to get to the ultimate goal. Also, if I happen to collect the dividend as I go, that also adds to the total. This is not for everyone. It is a lot of work, but to me, it was and hopefully, will be a ton of fun. I love my dividends, but I love cash in my account just the same. It is an experiment, and I will give my best shot to move forward with it. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Right?

A few problems creep up into the process as it rolls along. I have to be willing to buy a huge block of stock to eliminate the commissions so I more easily attain the 1% on the trade. I also have to sell that huge block at one time which might result in market swings and not getting my price, however, if the stock is not thinly traded, that will be less of an issue early on in the process. The stocks have to have nice volume on a regular basis. Another big issue is the settlement of the money from the trades. So, it is not something I can do on an everyday basis in an IRA unless I keep extra cash on that I could use just in case. That idea would allow me to trade more frequently, but it would keep the cash from potentially gaining on the prior transaction and potential dividends. Also, fear might start to creep up on me when buying large blocks of stock at once. Such is life, and as Franklin D. Roosevelt so famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Once I figure out how to publish a spreadsheat on this site, I will give you my other plan.

Spreadsheet to be published as soon as I can get it updated to this site.

Here is a screen shot of the first few trades. The sheet has the strategy on the left and the actual trades on the right. I will publish the entire sheet when I figure out how. I seem to have to be self hosted. That will come soon.

 

Keep cranking,

Robert the DividendDreamer

Any thoughts? All comments are greatly appreciated.