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- Nourish Your Roots Newsletter Issue #5
Nourish Your Roots Newsletter
First Impressions
ISSUE #5
After a few weeks of sharing my newsletter with the community, I wanted to take a moment and say thanks for all the awesome support! The reactions and messages I am receiving genuinely means a lot to me. Thank you Very Much!
When I was younger, I had no exposure to anything about the stock market. I heard about “stocks” was from the board game Life, where you buy stock in a number that gets spun on the dial and if it lands on it you get to collect some money. Not one person talked about investing in my family at least that I am aware of. I heard about it in movies and TV shows growing up, hearing news about it (being completely lost when charts for SP500 NASDAQ popped up on the screen) or when people would complain or make jokes. So I assumed more for most of my life that, the “stock market” was something that wealthy people did to gamble on businesses .. much like how people bet on sports..which wasn’t for me.
Other than that none, zilch, nada.. alll the way until senior year of high school for me, I was 17, in a math class where the teacher wanted everyone to do a little stock research, but it was not a deep dive. He wanted us to find a company, its current value… and honestly I cannot even remember the rest of the assignment because it was passed over so fast that it honestly felt like a waste of time.
It wasn’t until about 2016 when my cousin mentioned Robinhood to me and then I started to see Robinhood pop up on Youtube as well. So I began to watch some videos for it and then I saw a video, from a person whose content I valued a lot, and the title read something along the lines of “I got paid while I was sleeping with Robinhood”… I watched the video and the concept of passive income an dividends were introduced to me and how through Robinhood anyone can have access to the Stock Market..
After weeks of due diligence and much arguing with myself.. because I am one skeptical scardy cat when it comes to anything I am not 100% comfortable with and that has risk to it where I can get hurt or lose something valuable, I finally opened a Robinhood account. I funded it with enough to buy 1 share of Realty Income, Johnson and Johnson, Coca Cola and Verizon. Companies I knew and one I learned about that paid every month. In November 2019 I got my first dividend payment and the rest is history I was absolutely hooked.
I share this story of how I began investing because of how my first impressions of the stock market held me back from even wanting to learn about investing.
First impressions play a significant role in the way we immediately build a thought process about a topic, person, subject or activity. This can be positive or negative and this discussion on the concept of first impressions can go on for a long time making this newsletter even more lengthy.
Take sometime this weekend and think back, reflect on how a first impression impacted your ability to start something new. Did it make you more eager or did the first impression make you more apprehensive. Reach out to me on X (@DividendRoots) and let me know about your story, I would love to hear your story.
You can always reach out to me through email ([email protected]) or through X or Twitter @DividendRoots… I don’t know what to call it…
Nourish Your Roots.
-Gio
DIVIDEND DATA UPDATE
Click here —> ROOTS PORTFOLIO
Purchases:
Total $ Invested: $2973.82 Sells: $2902.18 TTC x2 ($168.43) ITW x1 ($239.91) SO x5 ($348.05) MSFT x5 ($1904.51) SCHG x3 ($241.28) | Dividends Collected This Week WEEK OF: 11/27-12/1 (2023)
Total: $83.50 |
Overall Comments: Over the course of this year I have been trimming down my portfolio. I started the year with a wild goal of having a portfolio consisting of 100 stocks and making it my own handcrafted ETF essentially. But as the year progressed I found out myself letting through some companies that were really bogging down and deviating from my goals I established for my portfolio. I made some bold sells this week, but increased my overall pre tax passive annual dividend income as well as my dividend growth rate. I am down to 51 positions now, close to the 50 I want to reach.
X HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
This section is dedicated to a X member who offers meaningful, thought provoking finance, educational, content while maintaining a positive attitude and supporting members of the community. I suggest giving them a follow and checking them out
X Profile Spotlight :
The spotlight for this week is awarded to @DivStockpile. Jeremy is one of the first people I connected with when I began sharing my investing journey on X. He has always offered meaningful responses in any discussion as well as work with me to clarify any questions whether it be investing, options or anything else. He has a Youtube Channel (Dividend Stockpile Youtube Channel) where he dives into solid thought provoking concepts as well as offers some valuable content!
I reached out to Jeremy, and asked him “ What was your original impression when you heard about the stock market?” He responded with
“My first impression of the stock market was one of excitement and wonder. It was 1999 and the Dow was on its way to 10,000 for the first time. It was all over the news and as a 17 year old, I was instantly glued to it. I didn’t have much money but I started investing a few dollars a month through Compushare, which allowed you to buy fractional shares way before Robinhood or any of the others. I had no idea what I was doing and was just picking names I found in Yahoo! Magazine. That ultimately didn’t turn out well, but we all make mistakes when we start. When I turned 19 I got my first job that offered a 401k and immediately started investing regularly. I never stopped and now investing is a huge part of my life.”
Jeremy’s response shows how wildly different peoples perspectives are on a topic. Where I initially was skeptical and unsure about the stock market Jeremy’s was filled with wonder and excitement!
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This week I also asked the Dividend Investing and Finance Community what they thought on some topics.. here are the results of these poll questions below!
Here are some results from the X community when they were first introduced to the concept of Dividend investing.
Here are some results from asking the X investing community about their first reaction to learning about the stock market
Resource Center Section
Tools that I utilize
These websites and apps listed below I personally utilize on a daily basis for research, news and portfolio tracking.
www.thedividendtracker.com - easily one of the best tools that I use to research dividends and its very beginner friendly. The free version has exceptional options available to you for taking a deeper dive into stocks and keeping track of the progress of your portfolio over time. There is a paid version you can upgrade to and offers tools such as a payout calendar, calculators and much more! Definitely worth checking out. Also comes as an app 🙂
www.seekingalpha.com - an excellent website tool that offers some seriously in-depth analysis of stocks that you research. There is a free version for some simple portfolio tracking and a paid version that offers way more options such as comparisons to other stocks and history and way more! Also comes as an app. 🙂
www.finviz.com - great tool for screening stocks, getting charts and graphs and comparisons. If you want quick or indepth analysis this is a great tool to have access to. PLUS its free 😄
Div Tracker App- Free app decent tools/ paid version offers some extra tools. Allows for quick tracking on phone or tablet and has a payout calendar which is always fun.
Book Corner
The books listed here are ones that I have read along my journey to teach myself investing principals as well as develop a better understanding of financial literacy. This list will be ever growing 🙂
Podcasts
List of Podcasts that are great for beginners and veteran investors that I listen to daily. They offer book reviews, stock reviews and thought provoking discussions. I usually listen in the morning on the way to work and on the way home from work, then i can sit and reflect on what the podcast is talking about.
Brokerage
Charles Schwab
Robinhood
Fidelity
Photography Highlight of the Week
