Quite the Monday crash, eh my friends? The trouble started last week when Lehman Brothers (LEH) showed signs of collapse. Monday the company filed for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The company has $613 billion in bank debt, $155 billion in bond debt, and assets worth $639 billion. The Down Jones fell 500 points in reaction to the announcement. That was the largest point drop since the day after the September 11, 2001 attacks. No wonder Lehman workers showed up on that day with pizza, beer, tequila, and their resumes.
Despite the horrific start to this week, the Thoroughbred Folio has held up extremely well. I mentioned last week that it seemed to me that most of the volatility has been shaken out of the Dividend Aristocrats. This week adds even more fuel to that fire. We are sitting at -4.32% for the year, which is pretty darn good when you look around at the carnage on Wall Street.
Family Dollar (FDO) remains a stallion, leading the Folio again this week. Rohm and Haas (ROH) is slightly ahead of Wrigley (WWY) for second place. We had a windfall of dividends over the last week bringing our total dividend income to $68.32 (2.3%) for the year. Not too shabby.
The bottom stocks have held up well again this week. However, there has been a change at the bottom. Gannett (GCI) has finally grabbed the bottom spot in the Folio. Regions Financial (RF) is probably celebrating somewhere after their extended stint as our most lovable loser. KeyCorp (KEY) retakes the third spot from Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB). These two seem to mirror each other very closely.
Thoroughbred Performance (Week 39 of 52): $-129.72 (-4.32%) Dividends To Date: $68.32
Top 3 Stocks
- Family Dollar $33.02 (44.02%)
- Rohm and Haas $26.18 (34.91%)
- WM Wrigley $24.30 (32.40%)
Bottom 3 Stocks
- Gannett $-38.87 (-51.82%)
- Regions Financial $-36.17 (-48.23%)
- KeyCorp $-30.28 (-40.37%)
Stocks used in this post:
- (FDO: 25.07, 0.00%, Yield: 1.95%)
- (FITB: 7.71, 0.00%, Yield: 15.30%)
- (GCI: 6.09, 0.00%, Yield: 26.27%)
- (LEH: 0.00, N/A, Yield: N/A%)
- (RF: 7.66, 0.00%, Yield: 16.19%)
- (ROH: 71.25, 0.00%, Yield: 2.25%)
- (WWY: 0.00, N/A, Yield: N/A%)
September 19th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Wow, you are up in your portfolio? Do you re-invest the div’s automatically? When do you plan on rebalancing - the end of the year?
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Remains to be seen if we will stay positive. Right now we are slightly up for the year, including dividends. I don’t reinvest the dividends, just accumulate through the year. We will re-balance the Folio in December on the one year anniversary.
Next year I may go ahead and reinvest, but it takes a great deal of time to manually update the Folio.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Do you not have Oil Trust…like SJT or PVX, PWE?
September 26th, 2008 at 7:17 am
No, the only real oil stock I have is Frontline (FRO) which is a tanker company. It is a really volatile stock, but pays big dividends if you have the stomach for it.