Focus or Expand?

By | June 19, 2017

I have an important decision to make:  Do I focus or expand my dividend portfolio.  This decision is related to my post on how to invest $20,000.  Be sure to check out that post if you haven’t read it.  In a nutshell, I will be receiving a $20,000 bonus from work. Thus, I will have about 8-10k to invest in my dividend portfolio.

At issue is my Capital One Investing account. With Capital One Investing, I pay $12 per month for 12 trades in that month. If I had only six stocks in Capital One Investing (formerly Sharebuilder), I could invest twice a month. That would equate to my 12 trades.  However, If I had 12 stocks in my portfolio, I could invest once per month, and again, that would equate my 12 trades.  If I do more than 12 trades per month, then I would pay $1 per additional stock, and I don’t want to do that.

So, that leaves me with the instant question. With an additional 8-10k to invest in my dividend portfolio, should I use that to boost the current number of stocks I have in Capital One Investing or expand my dividend portfolio to 12 stocks. If I decide to focus on my current portfolio, I would only focus on 6 stocks (probably ignoring MMM for now). On the other hand, if I decide to expand, I will add 5 more stocks to my dividend portfolio. Either way, I achieve the passive and automatic investing that I so desire.

I haven’t really identified the 5 stocks I will invest in, but so far, I’m leaning towards HCP, CSCO, SBUX, VYM (index fund) and VZ.  I’m also considering SYY.  Decisions, decisions.

If I decide to focus, I would probably not invest in MMM. I realize it’s a decent company, but, because of it’s current price, I won’t own as many shares – at least not immediately.  So, I would focus on every other stock in my portfolio.

As a reminder, JNJ, XOM, and ABBV are DRIP stocks with Computershare.

Conclusion

So, what do you think? Given the fact that I only have anywhere from 8-10k to invest in my dividend portfolio, should I focus or expand? Should I focus on 6 stocks, or expand to 12. If I expand to 12, I will likely not add anymore stocks for some time. I look forward to your comments as to whether I should focus or expand.

 

 

3 thoughts on “Focus or Expand?

    1. Dividend Portfolio Post author

      Thanks Div Daze. I’m really not sure what I want to do. I am leaning towards increasing the portfolio to 12 stocks. But, that would also lock me in (psychologically), so if there’s another stock that comes along that seems like a good stock to invest in, I would probably still avoid that stock until I have a respectable amount in the portfolio. I definitely want to limit trading fees. That being said, even after I increase the number of stocks in my Capital One Investing account to 12, I will still be able to invest in other companies through Computershare. There, I would invest in free-only DRIPs, so there wouldn’t be an additional trading fee to invest. So, I guess I could increase the number of stocks in my portfolio if I wanted to by investing in DRIPs. We’ll see, but that’s the route I’m leaning towards. I will definitely disclose what I do.

      Reply
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