Opening positions: BRLGX, JNJ and DUK

August 10, 2007

I tried, but couldn’t resist. The market has been tumbling these past days and I couldn’t resist, but jump in.

I sold one of my old positions (since 2002) that wasn’t really performing that well and I wasn’t seeing a bright future for it (Nortel - NT).

I used that money and added some more fresh money and opened positions on BRLGX (a mutual fund), JNJ and DUK (these two are new in my new strategy - income investments).

After my second son was born a few weeks ago, I decided to take a more conservative approach, so I started moving towards more mutual funds oriented and more income investments stocks (high dividends).

Johnson and Johnson is a proven company that I shouldn’t have to worry much about it. Duke Energy was a tip I found in a newsletter I subscribe to.

A couple more stocks in my radar: SFI, PEP, PBR and NTGR (this last one is a growth stock and not a dividend one like the first 3). The plan is to have between 5 to 10 income stocks and slowly put money in them over time until I retire.

All these dividend stocks were setup to automatically reinvest dividends, and that’s the magic of income investing. When the market is down, you will actually acquire more stocks with these dividends.

Another thing I decided to do was to invest in CDs. I just can’t get myself to leave the money in the savings account, so I started a CD ladder. Every month I’ll put purchase a 12 mo CD at ING Direct (5.35%). That was the only way I found to get myself to build my emergency fund (which is down to 1 month again).

Posted in Finances, Investment