I've got my ShareBuilder account set up so most of my purchases will be going through this account on a weekly basis. The cost is $12/month for up to 12 trades and the first month is free. The trades go through on Tuesdays.
Today I purchased:
$500 of PM
$500 of TEVA (new position)
$250 of MDT
$250 of RDS.B (new position)
I used $1500 and added $50.63 to my yearly income, an average yield of 3.38%.
Nice purchases and best of luck with the Sharebuilder account! I picked up some more TEVA today as well.
ReplyDeleteHi AA,
DeleteThanks, yeah I've wanted to own TEVA for a while and the recent weakness has given me an opportunity to start buying shares. I'll be watching what you are buying also. Take care!
Those are some nice purchases. I'm a fan of PM and MDT. TEVA might be a buy right now. I need to look into it some more.
ReplyDeleteThanks Journey. I like PM as well, especially their international exposure. TEVA is more of a value play but they have had great dividend growth with 13 years of increases.
DeleteThanks for stopping by.
Nice buys here! I especially like PM and MDT.
ReplyDeleteTEVA is attractive on many levels. The business model (generic drugs) is attractive and very profitable, but the issues I have with it are the low yield and the chunk that Israel takes up front. Of course, you can reclaim this at tax time, but makes that lowly dividend check a bit disheartening. Nonetheless, valuation-wise it looks like a solid move.
Best wishes!
Hey DM,
DeleteLooking into TEVA I realized that branded drugs actually make up a large part of their earnings. They have one drug, Copaxone, that makes up 20% of their sales. The patent is expiring in the next couple of years so I assume that's one reason for the drop in price. I think there is a lot of room for growth of generics in emerging markets though. I do agree it's more of a value play but you have to love their dividend growth.
Sharebuilder is quite interesting, I wish you luck. If I were back in time and starting from scratch I think I'd go this route.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that not being able to pick the price, only the company is not necessarily bad. It forces you to invest in the best companies and focus less on valuation. I believe it's the best companies (not always the valuation) that will thrive over time making this plan a good one. I will be staying tuned as I find this interesting. Thanks for sharing!
I'm actually not too worried about picking the price. I can put my order in by 5 ET the day before and the orders get executed early that next morning. It's a great way to buy into several companies without paying a lot in commissions. Sometimes I may get a higher price and sometimes I get a lower price than the previous day. I think it would average out the same.
DeleteI will keep posting my experiences so it might help others. Thanks for stopping by.
I have been using sharebuilder for a while. If you happen to have a Costco membership there are some perks you can get for your account. The fee drops to $10/month for the 12 trades and real time trades drop to $4.95. I'm not saying you should run out and get a Costco membership, but if you were on the fence or already had one this is a pretty solid combo!
ReplyDelete-Brian
Hey Brian,
DeleteThanks for sharing that information. I didn't know that about Costco. My wife actually has a Costco card in her name, I wonder if that would count. Any additional savings will be more money I can put to work for me.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for reminding me to look more into Sharebuilder. I'd really like to get the chance to DCA more into companies with smaller amounts of capital and SB seems like one of the best ways to go about it. I did notice that they have a promotion where you get $100 if you deposit $5k, so that's a nice added bonus.
ReplyDeleteNice buys here!
I didn't see that promotion. I may have to inquire about it. I can already tell that SB will be saving me tons of fees. So far I like it.
DeleteTake care!
AAI, I was looking at sharebuilder once as well, but I wasn't sure about it. I didn't like that monthly fee.
ReplyDeleteNice trades!
Hi Martin,
DeleteFor me, I will be saving on commissions. I normally have at least 2-3 trades per month, that's $20-$30 at E*trade. I'm only paying $12 for up to 12 trades per month at sharebuilder, someone mentioned I can get it down to $10 using my Costco membership.
Thanks for stopping by.
Nice purchases. I already own MDT and PM, and I've looked at TEVA and RDS in the past. I don't know much about Sharebuilder, but it sounds like an interesting way to invest. However, I'm satisfied with my current brokerage (Scottrade), so I don't see myself opening another account elsewhere anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteHey DGM,
DeleteI decided to open a ShareBuilder account for a few reasons. First, I have right at 100k at E*Trade and I don't want to put a lot more in that account at this time. Also ShareBuilder is cheaper for me with commissions as long as I make at least 2 trades per month. I also like being able to make 12 different trades per month at the same cost (currently $12 total). It allows me to slowly average into shares.
Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to seeing your trades this year!
All About Interest,
ReplyDeleteShareBuilder has peaked my interest before.
The only drawback I was concerned about was when reaching your threshold (For example 100k in one brokerage account). When you get to this amount of contributions into ShareBuilder, could you just switch from the ShareBuilder Advantage to the ShareBuilder Basic so you wouldn't keep getting hit with the monthly fee? Then for example, you could just make a single buy whenever you accumulated a certain amount of capital from dividends?
It may be thinking too far down the road, but I was just curious what your thoughts were on this.
Thanks,
Geoff
HI Geoff,
DeleteYes you can switch the program. As far as I know you aren't locked into any time period. At about 100k I would probably be doing exactly that.