Q1 2023 Review
An interesting start of the year
Winter is over, spring is here and dividends are in the air!
With my portfolio reaching new all-time highs it’s time to see how its performed in this first quarter of 2023.
How my portfolio performed
Like always, we will be using Time Weighted Returns since they take out the impact of additional deposits and let us compare on a one to one match with indexes.
The indexes we will be comparing against will be VWRL and SXR8.
VWRL is the distributing version of VWCE (unfortunately Interactive Brokers won’t let me assign VWCE as the index). This distribution makes it slightly under-perform VWCE which makes no distributions.
This is the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF, and is a whole world market cap weighted index. This is the European equivalent to VT.
SXR8 is a accumulative S&P500 index. It tracks the S&P500 including any reinvested dividends.
Overall my portfolio performed worse than the general market, the difference is quite start particularly given that around 55% of my portfolio is actual just the accumulative version of VWRL, and as such it should track it (and even out perform).
Part of the issue comes from the set backs that some of the companies I own have had over the quarter. The INTC 0.00%↑ dividend cut for one.
Still, a 3 month period is nothing, particularly given that my investments are long term plays.
As usual, I made 3 deposits during the quarter, and the bulk of the cash from those deposits (and the dividends received) went to the following equities:
BUYS:
SELLS:
The main portfolio changes here were the full exit of my position in ONL 0.00%↑ and the opening of a new position with WU 0.00%↑.
I’ve already went into detail on the reasons for investing in Western Union here:
In regards to ONL 0.00%↑ this was ultimately a decision that I made based on a few red flags:
Finally in terms of my options sales I’ve scaled back my options selling this year, and collected only about $160 this quarter.
The main options I’ve been selling have been MMM 0.00%↑, TROW 0.00%↑, MSFT 0.00%↑ and MO 0.00%↑ puts. None of them have been called, nor do I expect the currently outstanding ones to be called.
A little over 50% of my total purchases this quarter went to VWCE.
In terms of dividends, this quarter I received an all time high amount of dividends, and about a 20% increase compared to the amount I received in the same period in 2022.
The bulk of those dividends have come from “the usual suspects” with Altria, Realty Income, Aflac and Intel providing the bulk of the income.
The upcoming INTC 0.00%↑ dividend cut has caused issues when it comes to achieving my $2000 dividend goal for the year, but with this WU 0.00%↑ purchase I should be able to make up for it.
Conclusion
I’m happy with my portfolios performance, and while there have been some surprising things (I didn’t expect the Intel dividend cut), I think my investments are doing reasonably well, and I’m happy to keep my portfolio as is for the foreseeable future.
I don’t expect to sell any of my companies anytime soon, and I’m happy to keep getting those dividends.
How about you? How did you deal with the quarter?
Did your dividend payments increase?
Let me know in the comments below!