Everyday Freethought

Here is the dividend income report for September, 2021.

The monthly dividend income came out to $1842.58. The yearly income total for 2021 through the end of the month was $6911.62.

The income for September 2020 was $1836.64, and the yearly income for 2020 through the end of September was $6659.02.

I have seen inflation at the grocery store. I can’t say I have seen inflation at the gas pump since I do not drive as much as I used to, and aside from food and gas I don’t buy much. I am reluctant to say that there is persistent inflation, at least not until Paul Krugman says so. I am seeing a lot of articles online saying there is a lot of inflation, and how everyone at the Fed is an idiot. To me, this feels a lot like the Great Recession and its aftermath: A lot of people insisted hyperinflation was around the corner, and at the end of the day the only proof was the intensity of their convictions. The sense of superiority people get from Pessimism Porn is a helluva drug.

There has to be a neologism based on Schadenfreude for this sense of superiority people feel for a disaster that never happens.

It seems like people expect the Fed and government statisticians to be perfect all the time, and if anything the Fed says doesn’t match up with their personal situation, then they just write off the Fed. The Federal Reserve (and economists in general) are trying to understand pretty much the whole world. If your experience doesn’t line up, then maybe you are the oddball.

Krugman recently blogged about this in a post titled Wonking Out: Who knew used cars and shipping containers would matter so much?

I used to describe national income accounting — G.D.P. and all that — as a peculiarly boring form of science fiction. That’s not to say that the statisticians just make things up; they try really hard, and their work is immensely valuable. It’s just that any close look at how the numbers are constructed reveals that data coverage is always incomplete and the gaps are filled in with estimates and imputations.

President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis James B. Bullard has said that the FOMC takes headline inflation into account. I will put reading some of the Fed’s reports on my ever-expanding to-do list. It’s like “Thanks Obama” has been replaced with “Thanks Fed”.

The Billion Prices Project has shown over the past decade that inflation is pretty much what the Fed said it was, even during the last hyperinflation scare. So score one for the Feds.

We have had asset inflation for a while: real estate, stock prices, etc, as Paul Singer reminded us. He was widely and deservedly mocked for this call, since a lot of prices did not rise just because billionaires are paying more for their toys. I think this time there is going to be some consumer inflation, but the cause is supply chain disruptions. I don’t think it has as much, if anything, to do with the money supply. A lot of businesses were closed, and people suddenly shifted what they were spending their money on. This changed shipping patterns: more electronics out of Asia, less grain out of the Midwest.

Maybe the reason the Fed is reluctant to say there is a more inflation because a lot of it is due to imbalances in shipping. And shipping is done by the private sector. All you Fed-haters remember the private sector, don’t you? The guys who can take care of imbalances on their own, right? Maybe the Fed is assuming that the private sector will live up to its reputation and get the empty containers to the exporters. I don’t know if that will affect the chip shortage; perhaps part of the chip shortage is due to a container shortage for chip parts (such as the metals for the chips). Unless the industry is being really stupid and making more containers and just making the pile of empty containers a LOT bigger. If that is happening, then we could be hurting for a while. I know that shipping empty containers is probably very expensive, but I have also read that the rates for some routes has more than doubled. It seems like there is a tipping point where moving empty containers is worth it.

It is interesting to me that people who think it’s naive to believe everything you hear also think it is wisdom to dismiss everything you hear. I think both positions are more alike than different.

I also plan on getting back to learning about Org Mode, and getting back to listening and taking notes on the conference calls for the REITs that I already own and am thinking about getting into.

I also plan on getting back into a few stocks in addition to the REITs. I know I got out of individual stocks because I got tired of entering information into a spreadsheet and GnuCash but unlike income from DGI ETFs, income from DGI stocks tends to go steadily upward. I am considering looking at a couple of bank stocks that pay in “A” months: Busey Bank and Bank OZK. I used to have an account at Busy Bank when I was at Moo of I.

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each September from 2011 through 2021:

Here are the securities and the income amounts for September, 2021:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $135.17
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $8.80
• RLI Corp: $26.32
• SPDR S&P Dividend ETF: $908.16
• SPDR S&P Global Dividend ETF: $701.60
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $39.76
• Gladstone Land: $22.77

Big Jim is getting back into his routine.

Painting of the Massacre of the Innocents by Guido of Siena (13th Century), assumed allowed under Public Domain.

Here is the dividend income report for August, 2021.

The monthly dividend income came out to $207.39. The yearly income total for 2021 through the end of the month was $5069.04.

The income for August 2020 was $205.28, and the yearly income for 2020 through the end of August was $4822.38.

I have not had a lot of time to blog. I know I said last month I would have more this month, but I was busy again. Perhaps in the report for September I will go into my views on what is going on and what my plans are.

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 2011 through 2021:

Here are the securities and the income amounts for August, 2021:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $136.02
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $8.88
• Gladstone Land: $22.73
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $39.76

Big Jim was surprised to find out that although El Greco painted a lot of religious subjects (some multiple times), El Greco never painted the Transfiguration.

“The Annunciation”, El Greco (1541 – 7 April 1614), in the Museo del Prado, assumed allowed under Fair Use.

Here is the dividend income report for July, 2021.

The monthly dividend income came out to $199.25. The yearly income total for 2021 through the end of the month was $4861.65.

The income for July 2020 was $209.33, and the yearly income for 2020 through the end of July was $4617.10.

I have not had a lot of time to blog, so since I am posting this on the last day of the month, I will put any notes/thoughts/commentary in the dividend income report for August, 2021.

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 2011 through 2021:

Here are the securities and the income amounts for July, 2021:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $131.83
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $9.09
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $35.65
• Gladstone Land: $22.68

Big Jim was busy this month.

The Annunciation by Nicolas Poussin (1594 – 1665); image from Wikipedia, assumed allowed under Fair Use.

Here is the dividend income report for June, 2021.

The monthly dividend income came out to $2162.36. The yearly income total for 2021 through the end of the month was $4662.40.

The income for June 2020 was $1957.12, and the yearly income for 2020 through the end of June was $4407.77.

I did not have a lot of time to listen to any earnings calls, or study more Org mode. I was busy with the job that I really really really really really hate. I might just quit and take a break. If I did that, I would be able to put my Roth 401k money into my Roth IRA.

I keep hearing some rumblings about inflation. I have not seen any prices go up, but they might soon. Inflation has been pretty low for ten years. It has to come back at some point. The worst part about it is that all the morons who have been predicting Weimar/Zimbabwe levels of inflation every day for about a dozen years regardless of the circumstances will insist they were right all along. There are a lot of people who think they are smarter than everyone else because they think the world is about to end, even though their predictions have been wrong for years. The Wikipedia article on pessimism porn goes into this. (Many people who will be screaming “I told you so” and leaving out the “..regardless of the facts” will be Glibertarians and fans of the “Austrian school“.)

In the past month, the site Investment Talk had a guest interview with a blogger I follow, Dividend Growth Investor. He is referred to in the article by the initials “DGI”, and his identity is not revealed.

During the interview, he mentioned the Coffee Can Portfolio. The basic idea is you find 20 or so companies that you think have good prospects, buy shares, and never sell. The site Coffee Can Portfolio looks like it veers into right-wing nutjob land. The idea of buying good, strong companies and never selling is one that I support (it is the basic thesis of dividend growth investing, except I let S&P do the work for me), but any site that publishes endorsements from Marc Faber and Michal Pento (who used to work for Peter Schiff), and one from a reader who praises the author’s “really profound insights into what’s going on in the world from an Austrian perspective” is one I would avoid. I don’t think the person running that site and newsletter has any connection to the person who came up with the phrase “Coffee Can Portfolio”. From what I can tell, the phrase (and idea) came from a guy named “Robert Kirby”, but not the one who arranged string quartets for Elvis Costello and Elton John  or the one who jokes about Mormons.

The idea is explained here on a site with text that is hard to read or here or here.

Before banking was widespread, people would stick valuable things in an old coffee can, and put it in a cabinet, a shelf, under a bed, or in a closet, and they would rarely touch the can or its contents. The idea came to Kirby after he looked at the portfolio of a married couple after the husband’s death. She followed Kirby’s stock advice, both buying and selling. The husband bought per the recommendations, but never sold. The husband’s portfolio was bigger than hers. Some of his stocks went down, some has done well, and one had done so well it was bigger than her entire portfolio.

Maybe I should get back out of ETFs and into individual stocks again. There are about 700 stocks on the Dividend Radar spreadsheet (formerly the Dividend Champions spreadsheet). At least for American stocks, if a company does not cut its dividend, the income will keep going up. I am not too sure why the amounts from the ETFs are inconsistent. Granted, I stopped because it is a bear (no pun intended) keeping track of a lot of stocks in a spreadsheet or finance program.

In the interview, DGI also mentioned the Voya Corporate Leaders Trust (although not by name) LEXCX; Yahoo Finance page here. It started in 1935. It is a unit investment trust, and not a mutual fund; mutual funds started with the Investment Company Act of 1940. It is prohibited from selling. All the changes in the portfolio are due to mergers, acquisitions and spin-offs. It has not done as well as the S&P 500, so I guess we have to score this one for indexing.

Still, I bet most people who day trade would have been better off in LEXCX.

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 2011 through 2021:

Here are the securities and the income amounts for June, 2021:

• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $34.80
• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $133.99
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $8.93
• RLI Corp: $26.26
• SPDR S&P Dividend ETF: $811.07
• Vanguard Utilities ETF: $225.51
• SPDR S&P Global Dividend ETF: $858.59
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $40.62
• Gladstone Land: $22.59

Big Jim says: Ask not at whom the mullet sneers, it sneers at thee.

Image from Google search, assumed allowed under Fair Use. Painting of adoration of the Magi by Duccio di Buoninsegna (c. 1255–1260 – c. 1318–1319), aka “The Duce”.

Here is the dividend income report for May, 2021.

The monthly dividend income came out to $160.93. The yearly income total for 2021 through the end of the month was $2500.04.

The income for May, 2020 was $179.08, and the yearly income for 2020 through the end of May was $2450.65.

LAND paid out five cents more than it did last month. Because the price rose, the income was not quite enough to buy another share. It is another data point that is making me wonder if I will be eating dog food in the dark in my later years. I have some money in a taxable cash account at a broker. I might “put that money to work” as they say in the investing business. But I worry that I might need it for savings. I really really really really really hate my job, and sometimes think about just quitting. I would need that money. But I might need it more later. Who knows?

I have started to listen to earnings calls for another REIT. I am looking at STAG. I am tracking these in Org mode. Hopefully learning more Org mode will change my life.

Here is a table with the year-to-date amounts, the monthly amounts, and the three- and twelve-month moving averages for each May from 2011 through 2021:

Here are the securities and the income amounts for May, 2021:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $129.89
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $8.49
• Gladstone Land: $22.55

Big Jim is learning Org Mode to change his life.

“Horse Head” (1815) by  Théodore Géricault (26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824), image from Wikipedia,  assumed allowed under Fair Use.

Here is the dividend income report for April, 2021.

The monthly dividend income came out to $259.95. The yearly income total for 2021 through the end of the month was $2339.11.

The income for April, 2020 was $200.13, and the yearly income for 2020 through the end of April was $2271.57.

This was another slow month. I did get a payment from Gladstone Land. I have not had time to listen to conference calls for other REITs. Or to learn more Org Mode.

The bond funds paid a bit more, but that was because they had capital gains distributions. They last distributed capital gains in December, 2020. At the time of this writing, the distributions pages have records going back to November of 2019, and December, 2020 and April, 2021 are the only two months with capital gains. I will have to read the prospectus to see if it gives more insight into when and why capital gains would be distributed.

I have been doing DGI since 2010. I need my income to be about 4 times what it is. Granted, it has quadrupled in ten years. I wonder if that will happen again. If I was using this income right now, I would have about $700/month after tax. Which I guess is fine if I can abstain from eating while in total darkness.

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 2011 through 2021:

Here are the securities and the income amounts for April, 2021:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $191.02
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $9.03
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $37.40
• Gladstone Land: $22.50

Big Jim is still waiting for the big payouts.

“Procession” (1859) by Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (9 February 1817 – 11 September 1870), image from Wikimedia,  assumed allowed under Fair Use.

Here is the dividend income report for March, 2021.

The monthly dividend income came out to $1807.93. The yearly income total for 2021 through the end of the month was $2079.16.

The income for March, 2020 was $1863.26, and the yearly income for 2020 through the end of March was $2071.44.

I am thinking about replacing VPU with another utility ETF. I know this is a first-world problem, but I hate the fact that they announce dividends at different times each quarter. Sometimes it’s on the 11th. Sometimes it’s not until the last day (and the dividend is paid the next month). I will be needing this income when I am too old to work. Granted, that might not be for a couple of decades, but everybody else can be consistent. Why can’t Vanguard? (I mentioned this here and here.)

I did buy some shares of Gladstone Land. I bought it on the ex-dividend date, but apparently I had to buy it before then to get the dividend. I still don’t understand who all these dates work, honestly. The ex-date, the record date, blah, blah blah. If I have to buy it before the 17th to get the dividend, then why isn’t the ex-date the 16th? Granted, it’s a monthly dividend, so it’s not that big of a deal.

I listened to the conference calls. I noticed that a few of the people on the calls (people in Gladstone and a few analysts) referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus”. I really do not want to give my money to right-wing whack jobs. Although sometimes right-wing whack jobs are good at making money.

There are only 2 farmland REITs. There were three in 2016: Gladstone Land, Farmland Partners, and American Farmland (NYSE: AFCO). In 2017, Farmland Partners has merged with American Farmland. So now there are two. Farmland Partners was attacked by short-sellers. There were lawsuits, and it took up a lot of management’s time. They had to cut their dividend.

There is a website devoted to farmland investing called Farmland Riches. It looks like the main way to get into farmland is to buy it directly.

I might also look into American Farmland Trust (Wikipedia page here). I don’t want to be a farmer, but I do need to eat.

LAND is not in any index, so if I bought RWR it would not be in there. I know I wrote that tracking individual stocks was a drag, but I do like the idea of a security whose income only goes up every time it pays out. I honestly do not know why the payouts of ETFs that only invest in companies that increase their dividends are so variable. I know some companies have cut or suspended dividends but the Dividend Aristocrats (normal and high-yield) only have companies that have increased payouts for at least 20 years. Few companies that have paid out that long have cut. Perhaps the number of investors in the ETF affects the payout.

I do think that investing in farmland is a good strategy. And maybe it will help preserve some of the farmland as farmland. I will have to listen in to find out what Gladstone Land would do if the “developers” wanted to buy some of their farms for a high price. Why isn’t farming considered a form of “development”? It’s not completely natural (someone decides to plant a particular crop in even rows). Someone is getting use out of it and making money. And providing food.

The payouts from RWR have been consistent, and for December 2020 and March 2021 higher than pre-COVID. Perhaps there will not be a real-estate apocalypse.

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 2011 through 2021:

Here are the securities and the income amounts for March, 2021:

• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $36.64
• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $127.60
• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $32.68
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $9.85
• RLI Corp: $25.16
• SPDR S&P Dividend ETF: $853.26
• SPDR S&P Global Dividend ETF: $468.01
• Global X S&P 500 Covered Call ETF: $43.11
• Vanguard Utilities ETF: $211.62

Big Jim wants less to keep track of in his life.

Image from The Goya Foundation, assumed allowed under Fair Use. Painting “The Manufacture of Gunpowder” by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, or just Goya (1746-1828). Goya should have his own website.

Here is the dividend income report for February, 2021.

The monthly dividend income came out to $182.83. The yearly income total for 2021 through the end of the month was $271.23.

The income for February, 2020 was $194.17, and the yearly income for 2020 through the end of February was $208.18.

I have started listening to the conference calls of a few REITs. I am keeping track of it using Org Mode. I have not gotten too far. Thanks to Texas’ “profits-uber-alles” way of doing things, Winter Storm Uri put a block on a lot of things.  And, yes, these “business” people who think they understand how the world works were warned this would happen. And it will happen again. It will probably not be ten years until the next one.

I am still not clear what long-term affect COVID will have on real estate. LAND is about farmland, STAG is mostly warehouses, Prologis is logistics, and Digital Realty is about data centers. (Does Amazon buy or rent?) I am guessing offices and retail will be hurting. But I will listen to the calls for Realty Income. They seem to be doing okay, and a lot of their industries are doing okay. They are reducing their exposure to gyms and theaters.

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 2012 through 2021:

Here are the securities and the income amounts for February, 2021:

• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $137.73
• Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF: $35.28
• Vanguard Total International Bond ETF: $9.82

Big Jim is bigger than the biggest storm. Trust me on this, ladies.

Image from somewhere on the web, assumed allowed under Fair Use. Painting of angels by Guariento di Arpo (1310-1370).