As we head into the home stretch of 2014 a great opportunity is seemingly handed to us for the month of December. That opportunity comes in the form of continued weakness in the oil and materials sector as depressed commodity prices have given rise to a sea of great dividend income opportunities for those willing to take them. While I’m not currently invested in energy or material stocks I can’t help but feel strongly compelled to at least consider some new names for my dividend income portfolio. For those that have been following DivHut for the past several months you already know that I do not add new positions to my portfolio with ease. In fact, 2014 was the first time I added four new names to my portfolio since I began investing in this manner in 2007. Those new names included, The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), The Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), Royal Bank of Canada (RY) and Unilever plc (UL). While I would much rather continue to add to my current holdings, I must, at least, consider adding some new names at these new great valuations. With that being said, let me highlight some of my December stock considerations.
The first name that comes to mind as a potential stock purchase is BHP Billiton plc (BBL). A well diversified mining company that is exceedingly popular among many of the dividend growth bloggers these days as depressed commodity prices have brought this stock down to its 52 week low while sporting a high 4.90% yield with an attractive PE of 9.12.
Joining BBL, I am looking at many oil patch stocks as well which include, BP p.l.c. (BP), TOTAL S.A. (TOT) and ConocoPhillips (COP). While CVX and XOM also look appealing to me I’ll admit that yield is driving me to consider the first names I mentioned.
Of course, my conservative roots might take hold and I’ll simply add to my current stock holdings in my portfolio. There are still many great names that I would love to add additional shares to but have really run away in the past couple of months. Foremost, were Becton, Dickinson and Company (BDX)and V.F. Corporation (VFC). Share prices have really run ahead of earnings for these two companies in just the last month and I’m just not willing to pay up for that kind of valuation. I guess time will tell where I’ll ultimately deploy my fresh capital. With such tremendous volatility in the market since October no one really knows where the next opportunity will come from.
