March 2020 Dividend Income Report - $163.01

Welcome to the thirty-fifth (#35) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks and peer to peer lending in March 2020.

Last March we spent both in Latvia and Georgia, due to the Covid19 outbreak we have put ourselves into a self-isolation here in Tbilisi.

Since March 17 there is a lockdown in Georgia, As preschool is canceled our daughter now is actively taking her online class. Amazing what a 20-month old can do.

Our Tbilisi balcony in HDR on the last day of March 2020

Seems we are going to spend a lot of time here for the next weeks/months, as the weather gets better, everything already starts to blossom. Pretty awesome scenery. 

From the perspective of the market, last March, just like February was a bloodbath, the Corona Virus dominated the news and streets in Europe and the US, all major indexes (S&P 500, Dow Jones) were down additional 10-15%. Our nest egg suffered a lot, and now I'm a bit worried because of possible dividends trims. 

Speaking of them (dividends) - Last March was so so, I was looking to make at least $200, but in the end, we barely reached $163.91.  Compared to the previous March in 2019, that is a decrease of -13.46% (-$25.35). Nothing to be excited about. 

Last month I was losing big on options trading --$3,744.91 was lost in options trading.  Due to the market crash, I was forced to close some of my put positions. You could learn more in this article: Surviving Bear Market - Margin Call.

Anyhow as options trading is not a passive form of making money while you are sleeping it wouldn't be fair to include them in dividend income reports. 

Last but not least, last March I was losing money by trading options on cryptocurrencies using the Deribit platform. My loss here  -$1,958.35. Ouch. It could be avoided, but as I was focusing on the stock market I just didn't pay attention to margin calls on crypto. As crypto crashed just like the stock market I (my naked positions) get swiped out pretty fast

When counted all together (dividends + options + crypto options), it seems I have lost  --$5,540.25 in total last month. Whoohooo. That's the biggest loss I have taken in a single month. My previous worst month was November 2019, when I took a loss of $959. This March is a record blower. It will take many months to recover.

Effective income yield last March was negative -38.55% Which is tragic, but not the end of the World (not yet). As the value is calculated from total portfolio value, which has dropped, even more, the number should turn positive in the next months.

Portfolio value at the end of March 2020

This is a combination of peer to peer lending, stocks, and crypto. The portfolio value has dropped by $18,500 this March. That is a pretty freaking number. When counted from an all-time high back in January, I have lost $23,665. For a portfolio never reached touched $40K, this is a huge loss. 

My portfolio value is thrown back some 2 years to the levels of April 2018. In fact, that is the time, my portfolio last time had a value growth (invested/value). 

The blue line represents the total invested dollars, while the red one shows the total value. 

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to mintos.com peer to peer lending and deribit.com options trading websites, by clicking on links on this page and by making investment mintos.com or derbit.com, I might earn affiliate income at no cost to you. Also, I'm not a financial advisor and I don't give you any advice, I'm just sharing my own experience. Investments in stocks, funds, bonds or cryptos are risk investments and you could lose some or all of your money. Do your due diligence before investing in any kind of asset. 

Interest income in March 2020

From the stocks and peer to peer lending I got following income last month:

Total: €146.86 / $163.01

In total there were 10 great companies paying us dividends in March 2020, that's 1 less than a year ago.

There was a dividend trim from WPG this month, they halved the dividend by half (and at the end of the month they did it again). WPG has been long called a rotten egg in the REIT basket, and now with the lockdown in the US, they just are barely keeping afloat. 

For a couple of months already Mintos is not anymore #1 in terms of interest generated, I keep slowly withdrawing money from the platform to re-invest in the stock market.

Mintos.com Review 2020 (36 Month of Investing in Peer to Peer Lending)

Monthly income

I've been tracking my journey towards million dollars in a savings account since January 2017. More than three years already.

Monthly dividend Income chart as of March 2020

The cumulative earnings for 2020 now are $579.15  which is exactly 16.09% from my goal of 2020 ($3,600). On average, it would ask me to generate $335.65 every month for the next 9 months to reach my goal. Right, now this goal looks very hard, as now I cannot see a single $300 month for 2020,  even $200/mo starts to look hard to reach, but this should change latter, during the year. It will be tough to get to my $3,600 dividend income goal this year, but I will try even tougher to get there.

2019 in Review and Financial Goals for 2020

Goals for March 2021

This is my favorite part of the reports - trying to forecast/set goals for the next year. But before setting a goal for 2020, let's see what I forecasted/said a year ago (March 2019)

When setting goals for March 2020, I will say - $250 is what I'm looking on. Looks quite possible. Should add more monthly/quarterly paying dividend stocks to get there.

Nope, it didn't work out as planned, I was short more than $87 form my goal,  mostly because the income from Mintos have dropped to single digits and a dividend trim from WPG. 

When looking on March 2021 I will say $250 is what I'm looking on, It's going to be very tough now, there are more dividend trims planned ahead, but I will keep adding some quality stocks to get there.