The Dividend Guy’s March Dividend Portfolio Review

This month has been another month marked with volatility and continued weakness in the financial sector. For example, my Citigroup holdings value went from anywhere just above $900 to around $1100. A $200 swing on around 46 shares is pretty huge volatility. The good thing is I will still be receiving dividends from Citi which will allow me to purchase additional shares at these prices. As I am a 20+ year investor, I have the time to let things play out.

My returns as a result of my overweighting in financials is still somewhat below my benchmark. My annualized return is -7.5% and the FPX Growth Index I track against is only down 1.4%. This is a huge difference, but once again it is because of my financial weighting in my portfolio. Here is what my sector allocation looks like as of March 30, 2008.

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I have continued to work on my overall asset allocation, as I purchased some shares in the Canadian Short Bond Index Fund (XBB) by from iShares. You can see those Fixed Income lines starting to come together with 14% of my portfolio in fixed income (target=20%). That has some a long way since the 0% I had at the start of the year. I still have to lighten up on the Canadian equity, which is in motion since I am doing an in-kind transfer of one company to my eTrade account at which time I will sell those shares and balance out the fixed income portion. The chart below shows what my asset allocation looks like as of March 30, 2008.

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The overall portfolio values are presented below.

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Remember, think long term and make sure your asset allocation is structured properly. I am evidence that a properly structured asset is better than not having one – had I been properly structured my volatility would have been much less severe and I would not have been down as much as I am.