I have a new toy!
StocksCafe is a website/app that helps you track and monitor your stocks portfolio and dividend income. Check out the full suite of functions at www.stocks.cafe.
Thanks to some of the other finance bloggers who have been using this nifty little piece of software at their blogs, I went to StocksCafe and started tinkering around. I loved it so much I purchased a one-year subscription at $39.
This thing is so idiot proof - all you have to do is key in your historical stock trades and it will automatically calculate your profit and loss, returns and dividends received over the years. Thankfully, I was able to pull out the trades information from my POEMS account and transpose them into StocksCafe.
This was what I found out.
I have received in total $70K worth of dividend income over the past 5 years from REITs. Wow!
I have reached the milestone of $20K in annual dividends in 2019. Yay!
Dividends received have added +16.8% points returns to the portfolio, when combined with the P&L. Not arguing with that!
If you are a serious dividend growth investor, you really should be tracking these statistics to help you refine your holdings and strategy along the way. For example, I have sold off SPH and Singtel as they can no longer match the growth and returns of REITs.
We are living in volatile times where disruptive technology and COVID-19 can change the fate of traditional blue chip stocks in a matter of years - think SPH, Singtel, Keppel, Sembcorp, SIA. We should manage our portfolio actively to pick up the stars and let go of the non-performing ones.
It is very important to protect your capital and not get caught up in a dividend yield trap.
"Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No.1." -- Warren Buffett