Money is Choices ETF Portfolio Update

Another month down and the ETF portfolio is up again so all is good. The birds are singing and the weather is sweet, but damn, I have sold two ETFs and bought a new one this month! The initial plan was to never sell any ETF, ever! The beauty of buying a whole index of companies was that I didn’t have to think about them. All I had to do was to keep adding to them and watch the dividends build over time.

It has been many months since I sold any individual shares in my main portfolio but with this new ETF dividend portfolio I have sold out of three holdings in less than a few months. It’s not because I’m trading in and out of them, hoping to make more money, I’m just changing my mind about what I want.

I ended up selling out of QRE which is the BetaShares Australian Resources Sector ETF and VBLD which is the Vanguard Global Infrastructure Index ETF. I still like them but I have decided that if I like a sector I’ll buy individual companies in that sector myself.

Because ETFs are a recent thing for me I’m looking at lots of shiny new objects and wanting them. Thinking back to when I started my portfolio of individual stocks I guess I did the same thing. It took me years before I settled into buying good companies and holding onto them for the very long term. My goal is to never sell anything but obviously companies change direction and some lose their way, forcing you to sell them.

So What Did I Buy?

I bought JPEQ which is basically the US listed JEPQ on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). I’m buying it through the new Betashares Direct investing platform so the brokerage is free and I can buy in small amounts whenever I want. JPMorgan US 100Q Equity Premium Income Active ETF (Managed Fund) holds companies in the Nasdaq 100 Index and uses a covered call strategy to produce income.

(Speaking of Betashares Direct, they now have an Android version of their new brokerage platform available. Previously it was only available to Apple users so I had to keep going to get my iPad to have access to them but now I can access them on my Samsung Android phone! Yes! Hopefully their website will be operational soon.)

So ideally you get growth from the tech heavy Nasdaq and income from out-of-the-money call options. The negative is that you won’t get all of the growth of the Nasdaq but the positive is that you receive a monthly dividend that is around the 10 percent mark currently.

I’ve been thinking about monthly paying dividend stocks for a while now as there’s a few months of the year where I receive zero dividends and I wanted to fill those gaps in.

I was also thinking about exploring call options to produce more income, so JEPQ covers both. I may also end up buying JP Morgan’s sister ETF JEPI which does the same thing with the S&P 500 index.

Both JEPQ and JEPI also have listings on the Australian Stock Exchange for those based in Australia (with JPEQ and JEPI ticker codes on the ASX). It’s a whole lot easier and cheaper for Australians to buy international shares now but I went with the ASX listing of JEPQ (JPEQ) because of the zero brokerage at Betashares Direct. It’s very lightly traded on the ASX at the moment but has only been listed here for seven or eight months.

Other monthly dividend paying options I’m considering are: Realty Income (O:NYSE) which is a real estate investment trust (REIT), NEOS S&P 500 High Income ETF with a distribution yield currently sitting at about 12% (SPYI), and JEPI which I already mentioned.

Dividend Payments in February

Zero! Many Australian listed ETFs will pay out in January, April, July and October if they’re quarterly payers or January and July if they pay twice per year. So like I said, there’s lots of gaps which is why I have been looking at some monthly paying dividend options.

My main individual stocks portfolio focuses a lot on growth so I want this new ETF portfolio to lean more towards income and a higher yield, yet still hold the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq 100 (the ASX listed NDQ BetaShares NASDAQ 100 ETF is on my watch list).

The ETF Dividend Portfolio for February

There was about a $900 increase this month which isn’t as impressive as the previous month’s $1,500 increase but that was expected as I didn’t intend to add as much to the ETF portfolio. The goal was to hit the 10k mark and we did with $10,215. Here’s the new look portfolio with the two recent sells and one new buy…

See the ETF Dividend Portfolio from January.

What to Expect in March

I most certainly will NOT be selling any ETFs in March or for the rest of the year. I’m comfortable with the ETFs that I have now and will simply continue to add to each holding whenever I have the available funds.

If the market continues as it is then I would like to reach a portfolio value of more than $11,000 by the time April comes around. I’m comfortable with the ETF portfolio increasing by about $1,000 per month as I’m also adding more to the main individual stocks portfolio.

Investing in individual companies interests me much more than investing in ETFs so that is where I focus most of my attention and resources. But if or when I reach a point when researching companies no longer interests me then I’ll simply sell them and put the proceeds into exchange traded funds. By that time I’ll already have an established ETF portfolio and I’ll know what I’m doing.

I don’t intend to buy anything new in March but it wouldn’t surprise me if I bought another monthly payer like O, SPYI or JEPI.

How has your portfolio performed so far this year? And if you haven’t started one then what are you waiting for??! Start NOW cockroach!!

Total ETF + Index Funds Portfolio for February

Portfolio value inside the Vanguard website: $4,117 down from $4,896 (I sold VBLD)
Betashares ETF portfolio: $3,233 up from $1,938 (I bought JPEQ)
ASX listed ETFs held in brokerage account: $2,856 up from $2,487
Total Index Funds portfolio value (VHY, VGS, GEAR, JPEQ and IVV): $10,215 up from $9,321

Most recent dividend payment (January): $71.38 up from $52.90 in October
Dividends paid in 2024 so far: $71.38
All dividends paid in 2023: $102.68
All ETF dividend payments since buying $222.02

ETF Dividends Goal: $2,000+ per year.