In 2009, I bought stock in several companies for a total of about $300. Since then, that money has grown to $2,500. I bought in at a good time and was able to reap some rewards so I sold this stock ahead of the fiscal cliff.
Since then, I have been looking into getting some dividend stocks. I went and checked out a list of dividend aristocrats. These are companies that have raised their dividends over a period of 25 years or more consistently. With the looming fiscal cliff, I am trying to hedge my positions with some companies that are not going anywhere and will not fluctuate with the market.
The other day, I bought $1400 worth of McDonald's stock; I got 16 shares. I figure this is a pretty safe investment and this company is certainly not going anywhere with a market share of $88 billion. However, they, of course, had their first decline in sales in 9 years so the shares have plummeted about $2.50 since I bought in. Just my luck. I am going to hang on to this for the long run because it has consistently returned 10% a year. Not to mention the dividend is 3% and looking to be increased, hopefully.
In addition, I had about $300 left over from the MCD purchase, so I bought into a small company called Diana Containerships. It is a small global shipping company that has a whopping 20% dividend! I bought 44 shares of this stock at roughly $6 a piece. I am looking to hold this position for a while and see what happens. Hopefully they will not decrease their dividend and I can get some decent growth out of it.
I think I will continually update you guys on my positions. I also have some other stock in Sirius XM. I bought 250 shares of this in '09 when the stock was $.05 a share. It currently trades around $2.80. I have made quite a bit of money off this one, but I am going to hold this one because I believe their debt is increasing and Liberty Media (bailed them out before bankruptcy) is looking at a share buyback program. Hopefully I will be able to make some more money off of it.
I will keep you up to date on how these stocks are doing regularly. Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Very interesting! I wouldn't have thought Sirius was that low, though. I've only played with stocks once, and it didnt go well (only a small amount; $150), but I'd be looking to get back into it when I can gather about $1000 in savings.
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