Recent Stock Sale August 2019

Yes, you read that title correctly. DivHut officially sold some stock. In fact, this is my very first “Recent Sell” post on the blog. I even had the create a new category ๐Ÿ™‚ Yes, I am a buy and hold investor. Yes, I own for the long haul, Yes I do not panic when the market gyrates wildly. I think you all have seen that if you have been following my blog for a while. But, one thing about being a long term dividend growth investor is that inevitably you will receive stock in new companies as a result of mergers and spin offs. Over the years I have seen my portfolio “grow” by as much as a dozen new holdings simply by staying course. As you know it can be a challenge to keep an eye on the positions you initially wanted to own in addition to the mergers and spin offs you never intended to own. I touched on this topic a while back with separate posts here and here.

Many of the new entities continued to perform well as well as pay dividends. Others, might have performed OK but did not pay a dividend. As an income investor it was essentially parked money that did not “feed my snowball” every quarter. Here is a list of my parent and offspring stocks that I’m considering selling in order to streamline my overall portfolio. Before any of you comment, there are some stocks listed that will be keepers.

VTR -> CCP -> SBRA
HCP -> QCP -> WELL
VFC -> KTB
ABT -> ABBV
KRFT -> MDLZ
KRFT -> KHC
BMS -> AMCR
JCI -> ADNT
YUM -> YUMC
GE -> WAB
APD -> VSM
DOV -> APY
KMB -> HYH -> AVNS
IR -> ALLE

While you might recognize and be familiar with many of the names on the left as solid dividend growth stocks, the ones listed to the right still have to prove themselves. With that being said, I felt it was time to do a little “house cleaning” and shuttle a few stocks to start.

I have sold in my taxable account 23 shares of Apergy Corporation (APY). APY was a recent spin off of dividend stalwart Dover Corporation (DOV). APY paid no dividends.

I have sold in my taxable account 4 shares of Avanos Medical, Inc. (AVNS). AVNS was spun off another dividend stalwart Kimberly-Clark Corporation (KMB) several years ago. AVNS paid no dividends.

Finally, I have sold in my taxable account 179 shares of LTC Properties, Inc. (LTC). This was a legacy holding of Mrs. DivHut before going the DGI route. We still hold LTC in our IRA as I prefer to hold all REITs in tax advantaged accounts because of the way the distributions are taxed.

What do you think about my recent sales? Do you keep or sell your stock spin offs? Other names I am considering letting go before 2019 is up is Wabtec Corporation (WAB) and Versum Materials, Inc. (VSM) as both offer very tiny current yields.

Disclosure: Long all above except APY and AVNS

16 thoughts on “Recent Stock Sale August 2019”

  1. Hut,

    I almost didn’t believe the title and thought it may be a joke, and then steer into a different direction.

    I do see this happen. I ended up selling QCP to get out of that situation, once they were getting acquired. All other spin-offs have added income thus far, but that can change.

    However, you are keeping yourself in check and focused on the goal. I commend you!

    -Lanny

    Reply
    • Hi DD,

      No joke here. Kind of crazy I had to actually create a new category on my blog for this post. Just goes to show that I rarely sell any stock. For now, I’m looking to shuttle my no and low dividend payers. I need my positions to produce income and not just sit around hoping for some sort of meaningful capital appreciation.

      Reply
  2. My VSM and SBRA positions are almost too small to sell and eat the commissions cost. Although I probably should because I admittedly have no idea,what the companies are up to. I just closed out one of our positions although I’ll probably end up regretting that one. The valuation seemed high and thus the yield really low but what really pushed me to close was the huge increase in debt over the last few years. Especially since it’s gone primarily for buybacks. It’s hard to fault management given the low interest rates but I feel that it’s just unnecessary and changed the risk profile of the company.
    JC recently posted…Recent Buy (11)My Profile

    Reply
    • Hi JC,

      Like you, some of my spin offs were also too small to consider selling but now with my free trades for twenty years it made sense to start shuttling my no and low dividend payers. No one can predict the future and these sells might cause some regret in the future if these companies become huge dividend payers but that’s the risk I’m willing to take.

      Reply
  3. Gotta stay focused and committed. Iโ€™ve sold quite a few non dividend stocks I acquired over the years gonna keep some shares of Goog and BRKB though. No sense in having non dividend payers take up huge amounts of space or money lol. Plus I never want to fall in love with a stock that blinds me and it goes broke
    Doug recently posted…Dividend Raise MPWMy Profile

    Reply
    • Hi Doug,

      This is my first time selling since going the DGI route. I have held on to winners and losers the same amount of time but seeing a dozen new stocks enter my portfolio I realized it was time to regain some control, especially when dealing with “new” stocks that pay little or no dividends. That’s just parked money doing nothing for me.

      Reply
  4. Keith,

    I get that, sometimes its nice to do some cleaning of spinoffs and legacies. Especially if they do not pay dividends. At this point I will hold any spinoff for 1-2 years to give them a dividend chance, if the don’t pay a dividend they will be sold otherwise if they start one I will keep them. I share YUMC and KTB with you, and I plan to let them stick around. I sold all of my non-dividend payers last year, and I don’t regret the extra dollars their replacements distribute at all!

    – Gremlin
    Dividend Gremlin recently posted…IRA to Roth IRA Conversion Part 1My Profile

    Reply
    • Hi DG,

      YUMC and KTB will stick around my portfolio as well for now. I’m looking to shuttle my no and low dividend payers first as I’m looking to add new companies to my portfolio going forward.

      Reply
  5. Whoa, that’s a lot of new companies from spinoffs, DivHut. The only one I share is the KTB spinoff from VFC. I’m holding KTB for now, but will most likely either add some shares so that it can become a more significant holding, or sell it and move on. No decision yet.
    The clean-up you described makes sense to me. If the spinoffs don’t make sense for your portfolio then no harm in moving on from them. Take care.
    Engineering Dividends recently posted…Recent Buy โ€“ EMN, JPM, UNH, CAT, ALMy Profile

    Reply
    • Hi ED,

      Looks like KTB will be a hold for me as well. I’m looking to unload my low and no dividend payers first and will most likely sell more before 2019 is over. Sometimes spin offs do amazingly well after their split from their parent and other times they are just huge duds. Thanks for commenting.

      Reply
    • Hi HHaWG,

      It’s amazing how much my portfolio has grown over the years in terms of “new” holdings because of mergers and spin offs. I still have quite a few more sales I’d like to make this year and now that I have $0 commissions it’s easy to unload some of my smaller positions.

      Reply

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