Seek Limited Paid its Dividend on Friday – (SEK.AX)

On Friday a range of companies paid there dividend. Seek was the first of my share portfolio to pay its dividend on Friday.

Seek is currently yielding 2.77% which isn't as high as the major banks dividend yields but for a stock which I consider a growth stock the yield is average or even above average.

I received $73.10 in total and with Seek continuing to grow it's dividends every year Seek is starting to become a growth stock as well as a dividend stock as well.

Seek's share performance over the last 12 months has been terrible as was trading as high as $18.99 and as low as $11.40 so is a large trading range. I purchased Seek recently at $12.31 after the large drop and with Seek currently trading at $13.01 feel that it could be great long term investment.

This will depend on how successful Seek's international expansion is as if they can replicate the Australian model overseas I see the share price soaring.

Carsales.com Ltd Pays it Dividend Today – (CAR.AX)

With dividend season starting to come to an end for my portfolio, Car Sales today paid its dividend of 19.1c a share.

Car Sales is a growing company with exposure to a range of international markets (Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Brazil and Indonesia) through its investment in iCar Asia Ltd (ICQ).

As I only purchased some of my Car Sales shares recently before the ex-dividend date (Cut-off date to be included in the dividend payment) I only received a payment of $58.63 instead of a dividend payment of $100.

Shares in Car Sales are currently yielding 3.43% which isn’t a bad return for a company with large growth prospects. Although the company’s share price has traded in a tight range over the last 12 months I’m happy to continue holding onto my investment and also to reinvest my dividends in the company.

As I’m looking for the long term growth and if Car Sales can achieve anywhere near the success they have had in Australia in one of there overseas markets I expect the share price to increase quickly.

Woolworths Limited Pays it Dividend Today – (WOW.AX)

Today Australian’s most valuable brand paid its dividend of 72c a share.

I have been a long time Woolworths shareholder as purchased over a 120 of these many years ago when they traded at a $11.93 a share.

Today Woolworths closed at $26.73 so have made a very nice profit over these years which doesn’t include the dividends. Woolworths is currently yielding 5.26% so is a very good income investment as since 2001 they were paying a total of $0.27 a share in dividends and in 2015 paid a total of $1.39 a share.

Recently Woolworths share price has seen a major drop as were trading at $36.00 a share during the last 12 months and recently touched a low of $26.43 a share. Unlike many individuals which are negative on Woolworths due to the struggling Masters hardware stores, the renewed competition from Coles and the ongoing growth of Aldi and other foreign companies like Costco I believe in the long run Woolowrths still has many good years ahead of it and they are still the largest grocery store in Australia for a reason.

I expect Woolworths could have a few tough years as it navigates the changing landscape, its growing pains and its investment in the hardware industry. Although Woolworths shares might drop further I believe much of the negativity has already been priced in, due to this I recently invested a further $10,000 into WOW and plan to continue watching the share price for further buying opportunities.

Top Stock of the Day - Beach Energy (BPT.AX)

Beach Energy was the best performing stock on the S&P/ASX200 today with a surge of 15.094%.

Normally I would be excited with such a jump in a single day but unfortunately Beach Energy has traded as high as $1.442 over the last 12 months and after today’s surge it is still only trading at $0.61. As you can see the stock could jump several times like today and still be trading massively below its 12 month high.

I do think in the long term the price of oil will slowly trend higher as the world’s growth continues. But in the mean time we might see further swings like today in oil based shares as the price of oil trends up and down. At this stage I'm more then happy to continue holding BPT shares and although not purchasing any more at this stage will be watching the share price closely.

Transpacific Industries Dividend Payment - (TPI.AX)

Today Transpacific Industries (TPI.AX) pays it final dividend for the year.

Unfortunately the dividend payment per share is very small at 0.8c a share and is down from the payment this time last year at 1.5c a share.

As I only hold a very seem parcel of TPI shares (470) the total dividend payment was $3.76.

Not only this Transpacific shares have been one of my worst investments as they are down over 80% from the purchase price I paid. Some shareholders are doing even worse as the stock was trading over $10 a share at the height of the market before the GFC. At one point TPI was the hottest stock and was being recommended by all the major brokers as a strong buy.

Transpacific is currently trading at 0.685c a share and looking through their recent annual report the financial performance of the company doesn’t really seem to be improving. Due to the very low value of my Transpacific investment I haven’t sold my shares and plan just to leave them sit in the hope over a long time the company will succeed with its turnaround strategy.

Luckily the bad investment in Transpacific has taught me to be far more risk adverse and to ignore the hottest stocks and what all the brokers are recommending and instead to purchase quality companies that have sound financials.

Bank of Queensland Surges Over 7% - (BOQ.AX)

Today Bank of Queensland Shares (BOQ.AX) surged over 7% with BOQ announcing a record profit of $318 million which is an increase of 22% from the previous year.

Also margins improved slightly by 15 basis point to 1.97% which is a good result due to the fierce competition that is currently occurring in the home loan market throughout Australia.

Also the low interest rate environment is helping maintain record low levels of loan impairments. As this reduced by 14% to $74 million.

Also more good news for BOQ shareholders like myself is that they are increasing the dividend per share from 34c a share this time last year to 38c this year.

Bank of Queensland also expects to grow its lending by 7% which is a very good growth rate when combined with this dividend yield of over 6%.

I'm more than happy to continue to hold my investment in Bank of Queensland for many years to come.

My Portfolio - 6th October 2015

Have just added a new feature to the blog which shows MyPortfolio so you can see exactly what shares I own and the total value of my portfolio and also the percentage of my portfolio that each share holding occupies.

Will try to update this from month to month so you can see how this grows over time.

Coca Cola Amatil Limited (CCL.AX) Pays its Dividend Today

Hot on the heels of all the other recent dividend payments Coca Cola Amatil paid its dividend today.

As I hold over 1500 Coca Cola shares I received a total dividend payment of $317.60

A nice little payment that helps move me closer to retirement.

Coca Cola currently yields 4.5% with part franking of 75% and pays a dividend of 42c a share.

It has been a very tough 2 years for CCL as the share price was trading at a high of $14.47 and paid a dividend of 62c a share in 2013.

Today the shares are trading at $9.22 and have gone as low as $8.16

Luckily I had made several purchases of CCL shares which average out to just under today's share price.

I believe in the short term CCL will continue to come under pressure due to the shopping centre price wars and also the changing health habits of Australian consumers. I'm still a long term believer in Coca Cola as Australia will continue to grow as a country and this will help but the major long term benefit is that CCL has the rights to the Indonesian market which has a population nearly 10 times bigger then Australia and is growing more rapidly. 

Why I Love Dividends

I really do love dividends as what is there not to love as you wake up one morning and an email or letter arrives telling you that …. company has just paid you. Really is passive income that everyone talks about.

Also you can choose if this is a cash payment or if they have a dividend reinvestment plan to simply purchase more shares on your behalf without having to pay any extra fees.

Many of the top blue chip companies on the Australia stock exchange offer dividend yields around 5% and are franked so a 30% company tax has already been paid which gives you a tax credit for the dividends you receive.

So is a lot better return then the 2-3% you will get from a term deposit or savings account with the major banks.

It is expected that over the next 5-10 years that dividend payments will make up half of the investment return.

Maybe it is an Australian thing as the average company listed on the ASX pays out 75% of profit as a dividend. This is much higher than some other countries such as UK based companies only paying out 49% of profit as a dividend.

The other reason why I love dividends so much is that it fits in very well with my goal of financial freedom. I’m looking to slowly increase my annual dividend payments over time to the point where I can simply live off my dividends alone without having to work.

So below is the passive income I have made from dividends over the last few years:

End of 2009 financial year: $2136

End of 2010 financial year: $2830

End of 2011 financial year: $6463

End of 2012 financial year: $7353

End of 2013 financial year: $6868

End of 2014 financial year: $12,527

End of 2015 financial year: $12,847

*Above is from dividend payments including franking credits and the interest earnt from a very small amount of cash kept in savings accounts (Normally used before purchasing my next lot of shares)

At the end of this financial year I’m targeting to achieve over $15,000 in passive income.

More Dividends from Last Week – QBE (QBE.AX), Cochlear (COH.AX) and ASX (ASX.AX)

More companies have been paying there dividends to me over the last week.

Received small dividend payments from QBE, Cochlear and the ASX.

Received $16.40 from QBE

Received $29.00 from Cochlear

Received $78.93 from ASX

None of the above companies offer dividend reinvestment programs so the money either gets reinvested with my next share purchase or used to pay down my investment loan.

As you can see the above aren't large dividends payments and some of the companies like QBE dividend payments have been drastically cut due to the companies poor performance.

As the above companies I feel are companies that are going to be around for a very long period of time I'm happy to just sit and wait from them to slowly recover and collect there dividend payments ever 6 months.

Dividend Season Continues - Fortescue Metals Group (FMG.AX)

Always a great time of year as dividend season continues.

Today Fortescue Metals Group (FMG.AX) paid a dividend of 2c a share.

The dividend payment is hugely down compared with what was paid this time last year as the dividend was 10c a share.

So this time last year would have received $236 as the dividend but was down to $47.20

So you wouldn't want to be relying on Fortescue for its income ability as you can see what a huge drop that has occurred.