Re: Old Folk Portfolio ... New and add on buys.
Today I bought a new position in AQN in the Old Folk Portfolio.
AQN owns and operates a portfolio of regulated and non-regulated generation, distribution, and transmission utility assets in Canada, the United States, Chile, and Bermuda.
So a combination of regulated and non-regulated is appealing to me.
Then the company also owns and operates hydroelectric, wind, solar, and thermal facilities with generating capacity of approximately 2.1 gigawatt; and regulated electric, natural gas, water distribution, and wastewater collection utility systems.
I'm really attracted to the various forms of renewable energy and especially it's water exposure.
So in essence, I like what the company does for a living.
I was turned off initially by AQN because of its past poor dividend history but after looking into them more, I saw that AQN converted from a unit trust into a C-Corp in 2009. I was unaware of that.
Since the conversion 12 years ago, AQN then went on a dividend increase streak which consists of 11 consecutive years now and with a very impressive 10% plus dividend growth rate, among the highest seen in the utility sector.
I don't know why SSD rates the dividend at a low 41 safety rating, there isn't an explanation, so I'm inclined to take the risk given the yield is 4.65% with a 5 year dividend growth rate exceeding 10%. A utility with a Chowder Number of 14.65 is very appealing to me since I only expect a Chowder Number of 8 for a respectable utility holding.
I realize this may not be suitable for everyone so don't take this as a sales pitch. I'm simply explaining the appeal it has to me now that I have looked into it a little deeper.
In addition to this, some shares were added to JNJ.
On the CEF front, BST, BSTZ and BME all announced nice distribution increases this week so I added to all three.
This portfolio generates a long of taxable income every year so I wanted to utilize a way to increase the income flows and have the income free from Federal taxes, thus I added to quite a few municipal bond CEF's today. I added to the following:
AFB .. EIM .. ETX .. EVN .. FMN .. NIQ .. KTF.
All told, about $48K was put to work today. The new position in AQN was started at $20K, added $8K to JNJ and everything else I added $2K each to. |
