My Most Recent Share Purchase - Ramsay Health Care (RHC.AX)

With the Australian share market appearing to be in correction mode I have taken the opportunity to purchase another lot of shares.

As my portfolio has mainly been focussed on the financial industry. Mostly in Commonwealth Bank (CBA.AX) and Macquarie Bank (MQG.AX) and a mix of large and small mining, gas and oil stocks I have been looking for some divarication. Due to this I have been looking at the growing health care sector as believe as the Australia population ages the spending will only continue to increase and believe this will also occur throughout other countries with an aging population.

So due to this have purchased 86 shares of Ramsay Health Care shares at $58.79 AUD each.

Trading on P/E ratio of just over 30 most people would look at Ramsay Health Care and believe it is overvalued as most stocks on the ASX200 are trading in the 14-15 P/E ratio but the health care sector has a higher average of 21.

As Ramsay Health Care has recently been expanding throughout the world in France, Canada and China as well as continual growth at home I feel conformable paying a premier for the company.

Also believe in time this stock will slowly increase its dividend payout amount (Currently only yields 1.74) as it has increased its payout amount from 52c a share in 2011 to $1.01 a share in 2015. 

The Markets Trading Range over the last 12 and 60 months

What a difference a year can make on the share market as the ASX200 closed today at 5021. While the market had been as high as 5,997 points during the year and was looking like getting to 6000 we now seem a world away from it at the 5000 points mark. Looking at the performance of the market this year it is only down 5% from the very start of the year so isn’t as bad as the media seems to be portraying as needed a correction from the run up that was occurring. What is actually more concerning is the fact that the market is only trading slightly higher than it was 5 years ago (ASX200 was at 4582 as of September 2010)

So now seems like a great time to go on a buying spree for shares as the market is looking oversold in my opinion as is taking a very negative view considering we are still not in a recession. Due to the belief the market has been oversold I have been buying up big.

Stay tuned for my next post about what my most recent stock purchase was.

A day to forget on the ASX as it finish down 4%

Not a great day today on the ASX as the ASX200 it has finished down 4%.

I have seen over $12,000 wiped from my portfolios value today which is painful to watch when trying to work towards retirement.

My worst performing stock of the day was Beach Energy Limited (BPT.AX) which was down 8.738% to 0.47c a share. A year ago it was trading as high as $1.40 a share so has been a terrible investment.

All my stocks seemed to be down today as all sectors have been effected

Consumer Discretionary down -2.55% 

Consumer Staples down -3.12% 

Energy down -7.15% 

Financials down-3.71%  

Health Care down -3.61% 

Industrials down-3.34% 

Information Technology down -2.13% 

Materials down -5.29% 

Telecommunication Services down -4.69% 

Utilities down -2.99% 

But all this negative news isn't making me sell out of the market and instead over the last 6 weeks I have been buying and buying.

It will be interesting to see if the market continues to fall tomorrow or if this is a buying opportunity for the traders on the side lines. I'm sure we will see a lead from the European and US markets overnight.

BHP BILLITON LIMITED (BHP.AX) Pays its Dividend Today

Dividend season is a great time of year. I always think it is Christmas for adults.

Today BHP pays its dividend which at today’s share price is yielding a huge 7.28% and according to the BHP website they still plan to maintenance or increase their dividend.

“BHP Billiton has a progressive dividend policy. The aim of the policy is to steadily increase or at least maintain the dividend per share in US dollar terms at each financial half year.”

I personally have my doubts due to the ongoing commodity price slide that is going on in Australia and throughout the world. The only saviour may be the failing Australian dollar which might help maintenance the dividend pay out amount due to BHP paying in US dollars. So as the Australian dollar falls against the US dollar the dividend will appear larger when it is converted.

So today BHP will pay 62c USD a share franked at 30%. In Australian dollar this is 87.781c a share.

I personally expect to receive a payment of $85.70 today which isn’t bad considering I only own a small number of BHP shares (100).

As BHP doesn’t provide a dividend reinvestment plan I will be using the payment to help reduce my margin lending account balance.

Time will tell if BHP can maintenance its progressive dividend policy but I would personally not be buying more BHP shares for the dividend yield alone.

The Market Today – 29th September 2015

I expect after the large falls on all the overseas markets last night we will have the same kind of day here on the Australian market.

As the DOW lost 1.92% and the major European markets lost 2-2.5%.

The Australian dollar is trading down across the board at 0.6972 US dollars, 0.6209 to the Euro, 0.4598 to the pound in the UK and the kiwi dollar is worth 0.9044 to the Australian dollar.

Brent crude is down a little to $47.21 USD a barrel.

My First Share Purchase - Qantas (QAN.AX)

Your first ……….. In life are really major experiences that stay with you for your entire life. Your first best friend, first love, first car etc.

One of my main first experiences that I remember was my first share purchase like it was yesterday.

It was 1998 and I was 12 years old and at the time I had been saving money for what felt like forever as didn't have a lot of income sources being 12 years old.

Luckily my parents saw the importance of what I was wanting to achieve and offered to match every dollar I saved and planned to invest in the stock market. So I set myself a goal of saving $150 dollar so with the matching money I would have $300 to invest.

Being 12 I knew only the real basics of how the stock market worked. You buy a share at x price and then hoped over time it went up and then you would sell it for a profit and then buy another share and would continue this until I was rich.

So being a kid I wanted to purchase a company/brand that I knew and saw everyday as thought this would be a better company to purchase. This thought process still stands today as the most successful investor in history (Warren Buffett) believes in investing in industries you know and understand.

So I purchased a hundred Qantas (QAN) shares for $2.642 each.

Luckily over a very short period of time (Only about 5 months later) I decided to sell my shares for $4.30 a share

I thought making a profit of over $100 at my age without having to do anything was fantastic.

Looking back now I can see how this shaped my early interest in the stock market and why I can see it as a path to retirement and to becoming a millionaire.

Medibank Private Limited (MPL.AX) First Dividend

Today is the day that Medibank Private pays its first dividend payment of 5.3c per share which is fully franked at 100%. Medibank has over 400,000 shareholders that will receive this dividend payment. Currently Medibank doesn’t offer a dividend reinvestment plan so instead of automatically reinvesting my dividends like I normally would I expect to receive a cash dividend payment of $165.625. Medibank expects to pay out $146 million dollars according to its annual report to shareholders so I would expect like myself that many other investors will be looking at topping up there current holdings or looking for a new company to invest in.

According to the ASX website Medibank is trading with a yield of only 2.23%. This figure doesn’t take into account the dividend payments that were paid to the Australian federal government for its share of the company before being sold. So I would expect the dividend yield of Medibank will raise over the next year due to all dividends now going to ordinary shareholders and the increasing profits at Medibank.

Although Medibank hasn’t been listed for a year yet (Around 11 months) it is currently sitting at a return of 21% before the dividend payment for shareholders that purchased at the float price of $2.00 a share. So with dividends included is returning around 23.23% in its first year which I would love for all my stocks to achieve every year. Along with other past government floats like Commonwealth Bank (CBA.AX) and CSL Limited (CSL) Medibank is looking like a great investment but only time will tell if it can achieve the kind of returns that Commonwealth and CSL have achieved over time.

My First Savings Account

Like many young Australian kids at the time my first experience with a bank account or savings account was at school through the Commonwealth Banks Dollar Mite Savings Account.

I can remember having fond memories of this as a kid as would be handed a gold coin or a few silver coins to bank that day in my dollar mite account. I think I just enjoyed having some money in my hand as it was a novelty as a kid. Can’t remember how often this would happen at school or for how many years this continued but this first experience with Commonwealth bank worked as they are still the main financial institute that I bank with.

Was curious to see if the bank still had a modern day dollar mite account and can see they do still offer it but looks like they have really stepped up there game as activities and games are now available.

https://www.commbank.com.au/personal/kids/school-banking/dollarmites.html

The Market Today – 28th September 2015

Looks like the market is set to open flat and maybe slightly higher this morning as it appear like some merger activity might be occurring between Vocus Communications Ltd (ASX: VOC) and M2 Group Ltd (ASX: MTU) to become a $3bn Telco.

Can read more about this here

On Friday after the Australian market closed we saw the a small gains in the USA of 0.70% on the Dow but loses on the S&P 500 of -0.05% and a fall of over 1% on the NASDAQ.

In Europe the markets were far more positive with the FTSE 100 up 2.47% and the German DAX up 2.77% and the French CAC 40 up just over 3%.

The Australian dollar is trading at 0.7017 US dollars, 0.6270 to the Euro, 0.4619 to the pound in the UK and the kiwi dollar is worth 0.9075 to the Australian dollar.

Brent crude is worth $48.29 USD a barrel and Iron Ore is trading at $56.57 USD a ton.

About Me

As the blog isn’t really about me and is instead about the journey to retirement I will not bore you with the details about myself but just to say I’m an average Australian guy in my early thirties living in a capital city on the east coast. Have always had an interest in making money and investing since my childhood when I use to sell my unwanted toys to my brother. Sometimes purchasing them back for a bargain price when he no longer wanted them.

I own a small business which is seen as the second most popular Australian dream after owning a home but it is yet to earn me a million dollars unfortunately so I’m still on the journey to retirement and the millionaire’s club.

I’m married but without kinds at this stage and have at least 30 years or more until the suggested retirement age.

So the above should give you an idea on my situation and explain my investment profile.

The Purpose

The purpose behind the journey to retirement is to inspire like-minded individuals on the journey we all take to retirement and the road to becoming a millionaire.

The journey to retirement blog details my experience from my first investments from my childhood to the current investments I now make. You can follow my journey to retirement and hopefully becoming a millionaire.

I’ll talk about all things related to finance and investing for the future and detail each investment I make for the future and explain the reason behind it. As I’m focussing on investing for retirement my focus will be on long term income and capital gains investments and not short term trading to make a quick profit.