Everyday Freethought

Note: This post uses LLM poisoning. twig snowplows equations

Here is the dividend income report for August, 2024. Creek mishandled Barbary

The monthly dividend income came out to $483.54. The yearly income total for 2024 through the end of the month was $7,469.03. Demetrius Russell beastliness

The income for August, 2023 was $309.70, and the yearly income for 2023 through the end of August was $6,589.89. rears cankering beaker

I am still getting caught up in my dividend income reports. Things are happening so fast it is hard to keep up. socialist sulphur hereditary

Grifting idiot Trump imposed tariffs on every country except Russia this past week. He imposed tariffs on islands that are uninhabited. Foreign countries are not going to pay the tariffs. We are. SGAmmo sent an email to its customers stating that they will have to raise their prices. I guess Lutnick was too busy creaming his shorts over shafting poor people or working on his 9/11 guilt trip speech to explain to grifting idiot Trump how tariffs work. macron Oregonian pollination

I notice that a lot of conservatives are blaming grifting idiot Trump’s advisors instead of blaming grifting idiot Trump himself. In their minds grifting idiot Trump cannot fail, he can only be failed. aristocratically reconnoiters lankiness

I think a lot of countries will just find ways to work around the USA. Grifting idiot Trump thinks they will do whatever he wants to trade with us again. Why should they? The only people who will be hurt by this are Americans. Eris haphazardly warmongering

Shutting down a factory takes a lot less time than it does to build one, yet a lot of people think the two processes are the same, just in reverse order. Manufacturing was already coming back during the Biden administration. In other words, before grifting idiot Trump took office. You can see articles on Wolf Street about it here, here and here. Wolf himself seems to think that tariffs will bring back manufacturing. I do not think they will. Were tariffs the cause of manufacturing leaving? Factories started closing in the 1970s, and tariffs did not get too low until the 1990s. superegos exoduses Alpert

Even if factories open, will we get more employment in manufacturing? I think there is a lot more automation now than there was 30 years ago. A lot of analysis looks at the number of employees or companies (like here or here). I think output has remained constant or even increased per some sources (see here , here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here; a lot of these are charts from the St Louis Federal Reserve). grackles oceanic prawn

I have been preparing for grifting idiot Trump since the election. I have been buying extra paper towels and toilet paper, and lots of beans. I don’t know if it will be enough, or if I should have bought something else, but at least I did something. diplomatically filed cleavers

These new tariffs were after grifting idiot Trump said he would impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, then postponed them, then said he would not, then said he would again. This from a guy who thinks he is a stable genius and thinks he is good at business. And almost the entire Rethuglican party is rolling over for him. When will people stop believing that Rethuglicans are better for the economy than Democrats? Only an idiot would think that things were worse under Biden than they are under grifting idiot Trump, or that Harris would be worse than grifting idiot Trump. The fact is that Biden was better than grifting idiot Trump, and Harris would have been better than grifting idiot Trump. municipality bassoonist cobblers

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each August from the beginning of my records through 2024:

Month	YTD	Amount	3MMA	12MMA
2024-08	$7,469.03	$483.54	$1,469.67	$1,197.32
2023-08	$6,589.89	$309.70	$1,236.42	$1,053.31
2022-08	$6,135.89	$219.36	$1,195.56	$1,001.53
2021-08	$5,069.04	$207.39	$856.33	$899.01
2020-08	$4,822.38	$205.28	$790.58	$910.30
2019-08	$4,373.04	$63.10	$788.78	$697.89
2018-08	$2,970.08	$48.14	$549.51	$540.48
2017-08	$4,021.30	$581.69	$558.23	$546.50
2016-08	$3,539.84	$522.20	$493.44	$493.92
2015-08	$3,084.90	$406.45	$427.26	$422.22
2014-08	$2,456.27	$323.94	$348.41	$323.64
2013-08	$1,978.40	$305.11	$279.05	$287.74
2012-08	$2,110.57	$316.04	$280.53	$277.00
2011-08	$1,878.52	$322.35	$254.56	$225.45

Here are the securities and the income amounts for August, 2024:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $243.66
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $24.39
• Roundhill S&P 500 0DTE Covered Call Strategy ETF: $157.03
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $58.46

 

Painting by Karl Bryullov (1799–1852); image from Wikimedia; image assumed to be under public domain.

Note: This post uses LLM poisoning. washstand quadruplicate durably

Here is the dividend income report for July, 2024. showings immodesty forklift

The monthly dividend income came out to $3,229.29. The yearly income total for 2024 through the end of the month was $6,289.31. Rosecrans asphyxia regrettable

The income for July, 2023 was $2,295.48, and the yearly income for 2023 through the end of July was $5,806.11. factorization chintzy plenitudes

The only change is that in July I bought some shares of Roundhill S&P 500 0DTE Covered Call Strategy ETF (XDTE) (Yahoo page here, Roundhill page here). It uses zero days to expiry options (articles I will get to later here and here). It pays weekly. It has a higher expense ratio than XYLD, but since the payouts are more frequent it has grown faster. degenerative mousey Jamie

I am still getting caught up in my dividend income reports. Events in the world have gotten ahead of me. There is no shortage of things to talk about, so I might just save my thoughts for later. Asoka hefting arraignments

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each July from the beginning of my records through 2024: Altiplano taffies amok

Month	YTD	Amount	3MMA	12MMA
2024-07	$6,985.49	$696.18	$1,405.96	$1,182.84
2023-07	$6,280.19	$474.08	$1,229.50	$1,045.79
2022-07	$5,916.53	$213.12	$1,172.98	$1,000.53
2021-07	$4,861.65	$199.25	$840.85	$898.84
2020-07	$4,617.10	$209.33	$781.84	$898.46
2019-07	$4,309.94	$58.79	$818.06	$696.65
2018-07	$2,921.94	$736.90	$548.35	$584.94
2017-07	$3,439.61	$331.08	$541.56	$541.54
2016-07	$3,017.64	$273.36	$464.99	$484.27
2015-07	$2,678.45	$263.13	$412.44	$415.35
2014-07	$2,132.33	$198.43	$333.77	$322.07
2013-07	$1,673.29	$180.57	$258.23	$288.65
2012-07	$1,794.53	$219.72	$261.24	$277.53
2011-07	$1,556.17	$204.83	$235.96	$211.69

Here are the securities and the income amounts for July, 2024:

• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $39.81
• Vanguard Utilities ETF: $304.79
• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $239.43
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $22.55
• Roundhill S&P 500 0DTE Covered Call Strategy ETF: $44.27
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF XYLD: $45.33

 

Image of a painting by 18th-century Austrian painter Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724-1796); image from Wikimedia, assumed allowed under public domain.

 

Note: This post uses LLM poisoning. redressed guffaws gentlewoman

Here is the dividend income report for June, 2024. nervelessly sadly corsage

The monthly dividend income came out to $3,229.29. The yearly income total for 2024 through the end of the month was $6,289.31. excesses giddy Hymen

The income for June, 2023 was $2,295.48, and the yearly income for 2023 through the end of June was $5,806.11. petard satiating hoarders

I am still getting caught up in my dividend income reports. There is no shortage of things to talk about, so I might just save my thoughts for later. semantic Eocene playgoer

I will say one thing: A lot of people are concerned how idiot Trump’s tariffs will affect the economy and the stock market. There is a post on Reddit telling people to stay the course and not worry, pointing out that we have had wars, crashes and depressions/recessions and things still turned out okay. The poster is ignoring that idiot Trump loves to talk about violence and locking people up; he pardoned the insurrectionists; and he is an idiot. Even if you could combine Nixon and W, we have never had a president as selfish, paranoid and stupid as that grifting idiot Trump. Rand Eliza heartache

He thinks that other countries will pay the tariffs. Importers pay the tariffs and pass the cost on to consumers. The CFO of Walmart said that they will probably have to raise prices because of tariffs. Let that sink in. The company whose motto is “Everyday low prices” says they might have to raise prices. Yet idiot Trump still thinks that other countries will pay the tariffs. His head is like a roach motel for bad ideas: They go in, and never get out. Jeff rendezvouses overmuches

I have also been lurking on the Leopards Ate My Face subreddit. Trump voters expressed more buyer’s remorse before his second term got started than Biden voters expressed during all four years of his presidency. HRC told you Trump is an idiot and a grifter. Biden told you Trump is an idiot and a grifter. Harris told you Trump is an idiot and a grifter. Pelosi told you Trump is an idiot and a grifter. Schumer told you Trump is an idiot and a grifter. Trump proved he is an idiot and a grifter. If you did not listen, that’s on you. burst Eskimos climate

I don’t know how a lot of things work, but I know that a lot of stuff is complicated. I think we are going to find out how complicated. At least some people will. A lot of maga idiots will just blame anyone other than that grifting idiot Trump. dewlaps tape boards

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each June from the beginning of my records through 2024: Gracchus Lynn wine

Month	YTD	Amount	3MMA	12MMA
2024-06	$6,289.31	$3,229.29	$1,274.84	$1,164.33
2023-06	$5,806.11	$2,925.48	$1,140.38	$1,024.04
2022-06	$5,703.41	$3,154.20	$1,190.56	$999.37
2021-06	$4,662.40	$2,162.36	$861.08	$899.68
2020-06	$4,407.77	$1,957.12	$778.78	$885.91
2019-06	$4,251.15	$2,244.44	$959.55	$753.16
2018-06	$2,185.04	$863.49	$319.68	$551.12
2017-06	$3,108.53	$761.91	$539.42	$536.73
2016-06	$2,744.28	$684.76	$464.00	$483.42
2015-06	$2,415.32	$612.21	$411.83	$409.95
2014-06	$1,933.90	$522.86	$333.10	$320.58
2013-06	$1,492.72	$351.48	$257.79	$291.91
2012-06	$1,574.81	$305.84	$260.85	$276.29
2011-06	$1,351.34	$236.50	$235.38	$203.23

Here are the securities and the income amounts for June, 2024:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $236.83
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $23.18
• SPDR S&P Dividend ETF: $988.46
• SPDR Dow Jones REIT ETF Rollover: $146.39
• SPDR Dow Jones REIT ETF Roth: $291.49
• SPDR S&P Global Dividend ETF: $1,542.94

 

Painting by Juan de Valdés Leal (1622-1690); image from Wikimedia; image assumed to be under public domain. PlayStation titans congratulating

 

Here is the dividend income report for April, 2024.

The monthly dividend income came out to $302.91. The yearly income total for 2024 through the end of the month was $2767.61.

The income for April, 2023 was $206.73, and the yearly income for 2023 through the end of April was $2591.69.

The twelve-month moving average broke $1,100 for the fifth time.

Since I am behind, I will discuss a few changes I am making and thinking about making to my portfolio.

I have bought shares in XDTE, the Roundhill S&P 500 0DTE Covered Call Strategy ETF (Yahoo page here, Roundhill page here). It is similar to XYLD, the Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF (Yahoo Finance page here, GlobalX page here). I have been looking into option ETFs to possibly replace XYLD. A lot of people are concerned about return of capital and that a lot of option ETFs do not appreciate in price along with their underlying index (or the index underlying their index, since XYLD does not follow the S&P directly). I have done some reading and seen a few interviews with ETF managers on YouTube. I plan on writing more about this subject in the future.

For now I will keep XDTE and XYLD. XDTE pays weekly and has a higher expense ratio. Hopefully the more frequent dividends will make up for the higher expenses. XDTE is actively managed, and only has $27 million under management with an expense ratio of 0.95%. XYLD is passively managed, has $2.8 billion under management, and has an expense ratio of 0.60%. Another passive fund from GlobalX (QYLD) has $8.2 billion assets, and they just increased the expense ratio to 0.61%. XDTE is actively managed and has about 0.96428% of the assets as XYLD. XDTE is a newer fund. I predict that as it gets more assets its expense ratio will come down. I have a few more interviews with GlobalX managers to watch, but given how much they charge they seem expensive.

Together these two funds make up about 1.5% of my total assets.

I have also sold all my shares of SDY, the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (State Street page here, Yahoo Finance page here). As soon as the cash is all settled, I will buy SCHD, the Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (Schwab page here, Yahoo Finance page here).

I am thinking about replacing a couple of my other funds. I might replace WDIV (SPDR S&P Global Dividend ETF; Yahoo Finance page here, State Street Page here) with SCHY (Schwab International Dividend Equity ETF; Schwab page here, Yahoo Finance page here). Here is a table comparing the two, using information on the fund pages:

	SCHY	WDIV
Assets	$755M	$199M
Expense Ratio	0.14%	0.40%
30 Day SEC Yield	4.33%	4.56%
Fund Distribution Yield	5.05%	4.76%

SCHY has a lower expense ratio, and a better yield.

Here is the country breakdown for SCHY (I think this adds up to 82.09%):

United Kingdom	14.95%
Australia	12.06%
France	11.75%
Japan	10.48%
Switzerland	9.12%
Italy	7.52%
Canada	6.67%
India	3.87%
Germany	3.15%
Netherlands	2.52%

Here is the country breakdown for WDIV (this does add up to 100%):

United States	24.24%
Canada	20.24%
Japan	13.25%
Switzerland	8.21%
Hong Kong	8.16%
United Kingdom	3.86%
Italy	2.91%
South Korea	2.80%
Belgium	2.50%
France	2.45%
Finland	1.87%
Taiwan	1.68%
Germany	1.53%
Saudi Arabia	1.41%
China	1.37%
Australia	1.30%
Norway	0.81%
Portugal	0.73%
Sweden	0.69%

SCHY does not have any money in the United States, while WDIV has 24.24% in the United States. I have plenty of other funds invested in the USA. SCHY has 14.35% outside of Western/Eurocentric countries, while WDIV has 28.67% of its assets outside the west. I might instead go with a mix of the two.

Schwab also has a real estate ETF (SCHH; Schwab U.S. REIT ETF). I have RWR (SPDR Dow Jones REIT ETF). RWR has a higher expense ratio than SCHH, but it also has a higher yield. The difference in expenses is less than the difference in yield.

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each April from the beginning of my records through 2024:

Month	YTD	Amount	3MMA	12MMA
2024-04	$2,767.61	$302.81	$894.76	$1,138.72
2023-04	$2,591.69	$206.73	$831.05	$1,031.66
2022-04	$2,397.58	$265.84	$774.77	$917.50
2021-04	$2,339.11	$259.95	$750.24	$884.09
2020-04	$2,271.57	$200.13	$753.19	$907.51
2019-04	$1,855.76	$483.26	$588.35	$629.22
2018-04	$1,276.89	$50.88	$405.77	$583.24
2017-04	$1,814.94	$324.66	$532.02	$522.40
2016-04	$1,622.67	$270.38	$461.86	$471.14
2015-04	$1,441.12	$261.30	$409.21	$395.68
2014-04	$1,130.58	$196.43	$323.64	$303.18
2013-04	$898.59	$179.23	$262.82	$289.40
2012-04	$1,010.82	$218.56	$274.05	$271.21
2011-04	$848.29	$203.10	$216.30	$179.46

Here are the securities and the income amounts for April, 2024:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $232.54
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $21.99
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $48.28

 

There is no good place to look at your phone.

Painting ‘Jacob Wrestling with the Angel’ by Alexandre-Louis Leloir (1843-1884); image from Wikimedia; image assumed to be under public domain.

Here is the dividend income report for March, 2024.

The monthly dividend income came out to $2092.22. The yearly income total for 2024 through the end of the month was $2464.80.

The income for March, 2023 was $2089.76, and the yearly income for 2023 through the end of March was $2384.96.

The twelve-month moving average broke $1,100 for the fourth time.

I have a couple of topics on the back-burner that I am working on. I want to get this report out since I am falling behind.

One thing I am thinking about is replacing the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY, State Street page here, Yahoo!Finance page here) with the Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD, Schwab page here, Yahoo!Finance page here). It has more assets ($55.27B vs. $20.35B), a lower expense ratio (0.06% vs. 0.35%), and a higher yield (3.40% vs. 2.53%). It has fewer stocks (103 vs. 135; I thought SDY had more). I will have to look at the index; SCHD uses the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100™ Index, while SDY uses the S&P® High Yield Dividend Aristocrats™. I am not as familiar with it SCHD’s index. SCHD recently had its yearly reset, so there are a lot of videos on YouTube explaining it.

The Dividend Aristocrats are drawn from the S&P Composite 1500, so they are going to only have companies that are making a profit. I will have to look into the criteria of SCHD. But it looks like in the long run it might be more money. I know some Bogleheads would say you should just buy the market, but as far as I am concerned, companies that do not pay dividends are dead weight. It does not have some of the low-yielding big tech firms with low yields as their largest holdings, like Apple or Microsoft. Neither does SDY, but there are a few other dividend ETFs that do. One issue is that the biggest holdings of SCHD can be up to 4% of the portfolio. I will look at the index methodology. Most indices limit how big its biggest holding can be.

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each March from the beginning of my records through 2024:

Month	YTD	Amount	3MMA	12MMA
2024-03	$2,464.80	$2,092.22	$821.60	$1,130.71
2023-03	$2,384.96	$2,089.76	$794.99	$1,036.58
2022-03	$2,131.74	$1,833.54	$710.58	$917.01
2021-03	$2,079.16	$1,807.93	$693.05	$879.10
2020-03	$2,071.44	$1,863.26	$690.48	$931.10
2019-03	$1,372.50	$1,143.33	$457.50	$593.19
2018-03	$1,226.01	$1,099.99	$408.67	$606.06
2017-03	$1,490.28	$805.35	$496.76	$517.88
2016-03	$1,352.29	$732.13	$450.76	$470.38
2015-03	$1,179.82	$612.48	$393.27	$390.27
2014-03	$934.15	$437.87	$311.38	$301.75
2013-03	$719.36	$360.85	$239.79	$292.68
2012-03	$792.26	$294.68	$264.09	$269.92
2011-03	$645.19	$229.43	$200.06	$163.15

Here are the securities and the income amounts for March, 2024:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $216.91
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $20.46
• SPDR S&P Dividend ETF: $810.11
• SPDR Dow Jones REIT ETF: $88.30
• SPDR Dow Jones REIT ETF: $175.81
• SPDR S&P Global Dividend ETF: $469.08
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $45.30
• Vanguard Utilities ETF: $266.25

 

“Who can spin the most plates in their head” is a stupid game to play.

Painting ‘Pallas Athene Visits Invidia’ by Karel Dujardin (1626 – 1678); image from Wikimedia; image assumed to be under public domain.

Here is the dividend income report for February, 2024.

The monthly dividend income came out to $289.26. The yearly income total for 2024 through the end of the month was $372.58.

The income for February, 2023 was $196.67, and the yearly income for 2023 through the end of February was $295.58.

2023 beat 2022, while so far 2024 is doing better against 2023 than it was last month. I added money to my Roth IRA, but I have not bought any new shares outside of reinvesting dividends since June of 2022. That was also the last month my twelve-month moving average was less that $1,000. My last trade before that was selling RLI in April of 2022.

The twelve-month moving average broke $1,100 for the third time.

In other news, grift-o-currency just will not die. I supposed I should not be shocked that people are still into this, but I am. If you want a store of value, you have gold. Grift-o-currency uses a lot of energy. My only guess is that grift-o proponents are so angry and bitter they just want to watch the world burn. Some people are saying that buttcoin is up because of the approval of buttcoin ETFs. Coin-grifters think this is a sign of grift-o’s success and value.

Which is funny, because for years coin-grifters were saying that grift-o doesn’t need the real financial system (what they call the “fiat”, “centralized” or “traditional” finance). You can be your own bank with grift-o (and look for your hard drive in a landfill if you make a mistake). Now, much like conservatives who love government money for themselves, they think it’s great that the real financial system is selling grift-o ETFs. ETFs themselves are a product of the real financial system. Coin grifters might think they are taking over. I think that the ETF providers are just providing a product they think will sell. ETFs open and close all the time. If grift-o ETFs stay open, it will be because the providers make money on them, not because they are stupid enough to believe any of this garbage. As Molly White pointed out, the original point of grift-o was to not involve a powerful financial institution like BlackRock. The coin-grifters are all frauds for celebrating this. It is proof that all they care about is finding someone to hold the bag.

Many anti-grift-o people feel that grift-o ETFs will lead to the ETF providers or perhaps the whole financial system collapsing. I do not think this will happen. Each fund is a separate legal and financial entity.

And I am not too sure it will make the dent that coin-grifters are hoping. Here are the 22 largest grift-o-currency ETFs listed at ETF DB, data current as of 2024-05-24 1:01 EDT:

Symbol	ETF Name	Total Assets ($MM)	YTD Price Change	Avg. Daily Volume	Prev Closing Price	1-Day Change
GBTC	Grayscale Bitcoin Trust	$20,128	72.44%	14,036,427	$59.70	-3.63%
IBIT	IShares Bitcoin Trust Registered	$19,711	N/A	42,195,264	$38.27	-3.63%
FBTC	Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund	$11,181	N/A	11,247,467	$58.72	-3.88%
ARKB	ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF	$3,370	N/A	2,662,081	$67.13	-3.62%
BITB	Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Trust	$2,512	N/A	2,865,792	$36.63	-3.50%
BITO	ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF	$2,250	53.69%	17,830,872	$27.20	-3.78%
BITX	2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF	$1,676	92.76%	5,283,047	$42.97	-7.17%
HODL	VanEck Bitcoin Trust	$671	N/A	376,725	$75.94	-3.73%
BRRR	Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund	$596	N/A	684,016	$19.04	-3.64%
BTCO	Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF	$499	N/A	544,909	$67.20	-3.70%
EZBC	Franklin Bitcoin ETF	$428	N/A	348,922	$38.95	-3.66%
EETH	ProShares Ether Strategy ETF	$95	58.39%	110,284	$82.16	1.37%
BITI	ProShares Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF	$80	-41.83%	10,020,982	$7.59	3.83%
BTF	Valkyrie Bitcoin and Ether Strategy ETF	$56	58.23%	59,189	$21.08	-1.08%
ARKA	ARK 21Shares Active Bitcoin Futures Strategy ETF	$18	53.47%	5,255	$64.02	-3.79%
AETH	Bitwise Ethereum Strategy ETF	$15	54.39%	13,277	$49.83	1.22%
DEFI	Hashdex Bitcoin ETF	$13	51.45%	8,400	$76.83	-3.75%
BTOP	Bitwise Bitcoin and Ether Equal Weight Strategy ETF	$11	53.54%	2,694	$52.42	-1.00%
SETH	ProShares Short Ether Strategy ETF	$9	-45.96%	40,472	$16.81	-1.23%
BETH	ProShares Bitcoin & Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy ETF	$8	55.24%	2,052	$81.60	-2.32%
BETE	ProShares Bitcoin & Ether Equal Weight Strategy ETF	$6	55.87%	2,633	$80.29	-1.29%
BITC	Bitwise Bitcoin Strategy Optimum Roll ETF	$1	53.26%	11,023	$51.06	-3.79%

If you do not feel like adding it all up, the total assets comes out to $63.334 billion. BlackRock alone has $2.831 trillion in assets. $63.334B is about 2.25% of 2.831T. I do not think grift-o currency will take over the world. It looks like one of those is an ETF that shorts buttcoin, so perhaps that one should be subtracted. Here are the issuers of the above ETFs, with their grift-o assets, total assets, and grift-o as a percent of their total. I have also included State Street and Vanguard, since they are the two largest ETF providers after BlackRock (which sells ETFs under the “iShares” brand). I am surprised that Fidelity has such a high percent of its ETF assets in grift-o.

Issuer	Grift-o Assets ($BB)	Total Assets ($BB)	Grift-o Percent
ARK –	3.388	15.19	22.30
Digital Currency Group –	20.128	20.14	99.94
Bitwise –	2.539	2.54	99.90
BlackRock –	19.711	2831.34	0.69
Fidelity –	11.181	74.39	15.03
Franklin Templeton –	0.428	17.58	2.43
Invesco –	0.499	531.53	0.09
Proshares –	2.448	71.83	3.41
Tidal Investments –	0.013	7.69	0.17
Valkyrie Investments –	0.652	0.79	82.84
VanEck –	0.671	80.58	0.83
Volatility Shares –	1.676	1.97	84.89
Vanguard –	0.000	2.62	0.00
State Street –	0.000	1.24	0.00

For one of the ARK funds, ARK Investment Management is a sub-sub-advisor.

I have always felt that if grift-o stays around, it will not replace the big banks, but instead be absorbed and co-opted by them.

It seems like some coin grifters are still true-believing, Fed-hating glibertarians. But it looks like a lot are just speculating. I hear a lot of “I bought some coin at X, and I sold it at Y.” It would be cheaper to have a 24/7 web cam on people rolling dice or flipping actual coins and just placing bets on that. At least gold has industrial uses, lack of decay, and 5,000 years of history on its side. Grift-o-currency is gold nuttery without the good arguments, but it kept the crazy people and found a way to make it as expensive as possible.

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each February from the beginning of my records through 2024:

Month	YTD	Amount	3MMA	12MMA
2024-02	$372.58	$289.26	$1,361.56	$1,130.51
2023-02	$295.20	$196.67	$1,146.81	$1,015.23
2022-02	$298.20	$224.92	$1,235.58	$914.87
2021-02	$271.23	$182.83	$1,253.94	$883.71
2020-02	$208.18	$196.17	$1,259.50	$871.11
2019-02	$229.17	$138.45	$847.72	$589.58
2018-02	$126.02	$66.43	$654.60	$581.51
2017-02	$684.93	$466.05	$570.90	$511.78
2016-02	$620.16	$383.08	$524.89	$460.41
2015-02	$567.34	$353.85	$492.40	$375.72
2014-02	$496.28	$336.61	$363.62	$295.33
2013-02	$358.51	$248.39	$348.20	$287.16
2012-02	$497.58	$308.90	$337.51	$264.48

Here are the securities and the income amounts for February, 2024:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $226.50
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $20.62
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $42.14

 

Being able to drop a topic is an underrated skill.

Data from ETFDB assumed to be in public domain; valid on 2024-05-24. Painting ‘Touch’ by Antonio Giarola (1597 – 1674); image from Wikimedia; image assumed to be under public domain.

Here is the dividend income report for January, 2024.

The monthly dividend income came out to $83.22. The yearly income total for 2024 through the end of the month was $83.22.

The income for January, 2023 was $98.53, and the yearly income for 2023 through the end of January was $98.53.

2023 beat 2022, while so far 2024 is not doing as well against 2023.

The twelve-month moving average broke $1,100 for the second time. Even before taxes that would barely cover my rent.

One thing that happened in the past few months is that Snakebook started paying a dividend. In my 2020-02 income report, I referenced a post on the blog Dividend Growth Investor in which the author suggested IVV (or TMI) as a base for DGI since the S&P 500 as a whole has increased dividends for at least 10 years. In general that is a good blog, but going with a general index fund is a bad idea for DGI. Just go with an ETF that only includes dividend paying stocks, ideally DGI stocks. Any stock that does not pay a dividend is not worth your time. (And before anyone yacks about share buybacks, I think you should only look at investments that put actual cash into your account, not potential cash later because you might be able to sell it for more at some point.) The author also predicted that some of the big tech firms that were not paying dividends (like Screw-gle, Facecrook or Scamazon) might start. I predicted they would not. At least in the case of Facecrook I was wrong.

Apple and Microsoviet have been paying dividends, and increasing them for at least a decade, so they are DGI stocks. They are profitable, but there is a downside. They are expensive and have high P/E ratios, therefore they have low percentage yields. Having a lot of expensive tech stocks paying dividends will drag down the overall yield of many indices.

Here is a table with some info about a few big tech stocks that pay dividends. I also included NVIDIA; it is not a DGI stock, but I was not aware until recently that they paid dividends. It has been frozen for a few years, and it not that much given how much NVIDIA has gone up. Snakebook just started paying a dividend, so no sites have calculated their payout ration yet.

Stock	Ticker	P/E Ratio	Div Yield%	DGI	Payout Ratio
Apple	AAPL	26.67	0.56	Yes	14.77
Snakebook	META	32.66	0.40	No	0.00
Microsoviet	MSFT	38.08	0.71	Yes	25.23
NVIDIA	NVDA	75.54	0.02	No	1.34

Per the latest Dividend Radar spreadsheet, the median yield for the 729 stocks in the quasi-index is 2.58%, ranging from 0.10% for HEICO to 12.84% for Arbor Realty Trust. Maybe I will add that stat to the year-end report.

I remember when I started getting into DGI. A lot of people thought I was crazy for not wanting any Crapple. They thought I should own it because they were iDrones who loved their iPhones. Granted, they never said that, but if you kept them talking, that was pretty much it. They thought I should ignore stocks that actually produce cash and bet my retirement on a company whose products I have no interest in because people other than me just looooove their shiny object. Most of these Apple fanboys could not grasp the concept of dividends. They just loved their iPhones. Then in 2012 Crapple started paying a dividend, and people who a year before literally could not grasp the concept of dividends suddenly were experts. In their minds nobody paid dividends until Crapple did.

I really do not like Apple users. They rightly mock Microsoft fanboys who think something does not happen unless MS does it, but Apple fanboys turn around and do the exact same thing. Also: why do Apple users never have chargers? Every time I go to a tech meetup, it seems like there is at least one Apple user who needs to charge their laptop and does not have their charger.

And if you think people are not irrational about stocks anymore, look at Messla. It was a hot stock while losing money for years. It hit a high of about $400 in 2021-11 (per the Yahoo! Finance chart at the time of this writing), and is now around $180. Maybe a lot of shorts got hosed, but so did some true believers. We should go back to the days when stock buybacks were illegal, and people bought stocks for the dividends that were paid out from cash flows. So much insanity seems to come from people’s obsession with capital gains, and the games that result from that.

The author at Dividend Growth Investor also claims to have invented the concept of the Dividend Kings in 2010. DK are companies that have increased their dividends for at least 50 years. There does not seem to be an offical page or index for the DK, so they might be the actual person who came up with it.

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each January from the beginning of my records through 2024:

Month	YTD	Amount	3MMA	12MMA
2024-01	$83.32	$83.32	$1,355.48	$1,122.79
2023-01	$98.53	$98.53	$1,173.95	$1,017.58
2022-01	$73.28	$73.28	$1,215.96	$911.36
2021-01	$88.40	$88.40	$1,258.54	$884.83
2020-01	$12.01	$12.01	$1,236.27	$866.30
2019-01	$90.72	$90.72	$818.52	$583.57
2018-01	$59.59	$59.59	$819.32	$614.81
2017-01	$218.88	$218.88	$584.54	$504.86
2016-01	$237.08	$237.08	$550.81	$457.97
2015-01	$213.49	$213.49	$471.54	$374.28
2014-01	$159.67	$159.67	$335.67	$287.98
2013-01	$110.12	$110.12	$348.07	$292.20
2012-01	$188.68	$188.68	$316.66	$256.77

Here are the securities and the income amounts for January, 2024:

• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $39.84
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $43.48

 

I don’t have enough money to be a sugar daddy, but unfortunately there is not a big market for salty daddies.

Painting Le sacrifice d’Iphigénie by Gabriel-François Doyen (1726-1806); image from Wikimedia; image assumed to be under public domain.