Week in Review April 27th to May 1st 2020

This week was pretty much a wash overall.  The week started off good as my portfolio value was up by around $117 by the close of Wednesday, but come the end of the week all the gains were gone and then some.  For the week I was actually down $23.  With that said that did not stop me from making some additions to my portfolio.

Purchases:

Realty Income(O):

I bought 5 shares of Realty at $50.45 which is currently down about 33% over the last three months with most of that coming during the crash in March.  Realty Income is a Real Estate Investment Trust or REIT and REIT's usually maintain higher dividend yields due to the fact that they are required to pay out 90% of taxable income back to shareholders.  I see the potential to earn via growth in the stock price as well as the bonus of the dividend that is paid out on a monthly basis.

Alerian MLP ETF(AMLP):

I bought 10 shares of Alerian at $4.63.  Alerian is an Exchange Traded Fund or ETF that tracks market cap weighted index in the energy sector.  This ETF is down around 40% over the last couple of months and instead of trying to find energy/oil stocks to purchase an ETF let's you just invest in the sector without having to spend a lot of time on research as the fund is managed by professional.  Again this is a buy low and hope it goes back up to pre-crash value as well as a dividend that is paid on a quarterly basis.

Cornerstone Total Return Fund(CRF):

I bought 10 shares of Cornerstone at $9.13. Cornerstone is in the finance sector and operates as a closed-end fund.  Cornerstone is trading down about 20% over the last three months so again trying to buy low and see if it will return to previous levels.  Cornerstone is a fund that pays out a dividend on a monthly basis.

Chimera Investment(CIM):

I bought a single share of Chimera at $7.68 with my leftover purchasing power.  I own Chimera in some of my other portfolios and this is another REIT and pays out a dividend on a quarterly basis.  Chimera engages in investing directly or indirectly in a portfolio of mortgage assets.  With the financial uncertainly that a lot of people are experiencing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic this REIT has really taken a bath when it comes to it's stock price and is trading down almost 65% over the last three months.  So here is another one that when the economy begins to recover I can see this stock price returning to pre-crash levels at some point. 

Over the last couple of weeks I have been trying to add what ever cash I can to my investment portfolio to take advantage of the down market as much as possible, but going forward my plan is to set $100 a month aside.  $100 may not be much right now, but this will be increased significantly once I am able to pay off most of my debt.  At least right now the plan is to be consistent with my investing until I have more disposable income to play with.

If you haven't started investing and are looking to get started investing for your future be sure to check out the following brokerages and take advantage of some free stocks.

Sign up for Robinhood

Robinhood offers commission free trades and will give you a free stock valued at between $2 and $250 just for signing up.  You can also earn more free stocks when you refer other users.  Robinhood offers basic research capabilities and is working to bring fractional share purchasing to users in the near future.  This is a really good application for beginners with it's simple UI and ease of use.

Sign up for WeBull

WeBull is another brokerage that offers commission free trading.  WeBull also offers new accounts a free stock valued at between $2.50 and $250 dollars.  They also will give you a second free stock when you make a qualifying initial deposit of $100 the second free stock will have a value between $12 and $1400.