Recent Purchase - Cisco

I've been looking around for another stock this past week as I knew I'd have the money to make another purchase. I wanted to buy a stock which pays in April so that limited my choices a bit. The first thing I look at are the names that I already own which might look attractive but I had a tough time finding anything that I thought was a screaming buy. Philip Morris (PM) is looking expensive as is Realty Income (O), there's still some value in Walmart (WMT) but the dividend growth has fell off. So I decided to look elsewhere and since I'm a bit light in the tech sector I looked into Cisco (CSCO).

Cisco Systems designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol (IP) based networking products and services related to the communications and information technology industry worldwide. While Cisco remains a leader in networking they continue to look forward to the future to ensure diversity of it's revenue sources. Cloud based computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) are now a major focus and Cisco has been busy making acquisitions to unlock this previously untapped market.

It's a shame I didn't consider CSCO a month ago when it was much cheaper but I think I made up for it with my Flowers Foods (FLO) purchase. Recently the company announced a 24% dividend increase and a $15 billion buyback. Cisco’s new dividend represents 35% of its free cash flow, so there should be plenty of room for future dividend growth. Assuming 10% dividend growth per year, Cisco’s annual payout will reach $1.52 per share by 2020, a 5.5% yield based on the current stock price.

I purchased 37 shares of Cisco @ $27.58 

CSCO Stock Chart

CSCO Basic Statistics

• Ticker Symbol: CSCO
• Sector: Technology
• Yield: 3.8%
• Dividend Streak: 5 years
• Annualized Dividend Growth 3yr: 18%
• Payout Ratio: 42%
• P/E Ratio: 13.8
• Market cap:$140 Billion
• Website: http://www.cisco.com

CSCO Dividend Growth Chart

February Dividend Update

It's February dividend update time! My dividend total for February was $292.68 which is a 9% improvement over last year. I'm a bit disappointed with this result which was largely due to selling my position in KMI after the dividend cut they announced. I took some of the KMI money and bought some shares of AT&T to make up for a bit of that lost high yield but it wasn't nearly enough. In contrast my last quarters income was $336.79 so I've got some making up to do.

I can't blame it all on KMI though, I also did not receive my Kraft Heinz dividend since it paid in January. All of this added up to a slightly weak quarter but it's nothing I'm too worried about. I'm still forecasting strong quarterly growth overall in the future.

I made three purchases last month including PZA which is a tax free bond ETF and my first exposure to bonds. I also grabbed some more shares of Tompkins financial which I forgot to share.

February Purchases

• Flowers Foods (FLO) - 56 Shares @ $21.44
• Tompkins Financial (TMP)- 19 Shares @ $55
• PowerShares National AMT-Free MuniBd ETF (PZA) - 78 @ $25.80

February Dividend Increases

• AT&T (T) - From .47 to .48 (+2.1 %)

February Dividend Income

• AT&T (T) - $108
• WGL Holdings - (WGL) - $30.53
• General Mills (GIS) - $34.32
• Clorox (CLX) - $14.63
• Realty Income (O) - $19.85
• Proctor & Gamble (PG) - $22.54
• Peoples United Financial (PBCT) - $37.35
• Tompkins Financial (TMP) - $19.80
• Powershares National MuniBond ETF (PZA) - $5.66

Total Dividends February 2016: - $292.68