Hello, I'm an investor newbie and here is my intro. I had a small stock account with $43.5 K that Edward Jones set up for me but I moved to Ameritrade as I wanted to learn how to trade and take direct ownership of part of my financial future. The goal of the stock account was to invest in dividend bearing stocks to create an income stream. I had gotten laid off and my income dropped from 10k/mo to 3.4k/mo and I wanted $350/mo income from dividends. EJ set me up with positions in ABBV, SDIV, MPC, ENB, T, NLY, O, GLP, DCP, CODI, and FRO. Since taking control I ditched O because O wasn't growing at all and paid < 4.96% div. FRO (400 shares) had lost $150 bucks and with no div this quarter so I sold. I liked Enbridge but 15% of my 1st div went to Canadian taxes so I sold that too. I bought VLO in place of ENB and CSSEP (Chicken Soup for the Soul Preferred stock) to replace FRO and O. My account is balanced as follows: Biotech (abbv) - 8.2% Real Estate and holding companies (NLY, CODI) - 13.4% Entertainment (cssep) - 12.5% Funds (sdiv) - 12.4% Communications (T) - 10.4% Energy/Oil - 43.1% I'm earning approximately $340/mo which is good enough of which I'm intending to reinvest $100/mo. Abbv dividends are around 5%, I've gained 16% in stock price, and I think there's still room to grow. Regarding oil/energy my feeling is that once people start traveling again post covid that refinary operations will grow so companies that refine products should do well. MPC has been up around 30% since I started this journey. My positions are valued now at 51.3K. Hoping to meet people and get advice as how to grow this fund, meet my goals, and manage risk. gtrueau88 (age 52)
