Dividend Progress Report: March 2012 Edition

March was the first month of 2012 where I actually made a move in the market. I took up a position in Kinross Gold, with the intention to make a quick trade. That was a month ago and I still have the position. No worries though because it actually gave me some cash to wait for better days. On to the numbers:

Total yield of portfolio - 4.63% (- 0.25%)
Actual dividends received - $327.69 (+ $92.91)
Expected dividends return if the current positions are held for 1 year - $1268.31 (+$32.64)

The yield took a bit of a hit because of the lower yield of Kinross weighing down the average. Initially, I didn't want to include Kinross in the calculation because it's a trading experiment. It doesn't contribute to my goal of reaching a dividends return of $2500 (I know i said that $2500 was ambitious before but now it seems like a monster of a task) if all my positions were held for a year because I don't plan to hold this long-term. However, it does distribute a dividend and that should be considered in every calculation that involves dividends.

Over the summer I'm hoping to get the time to fix my spreadsheet so that I can extrapolate the amount of cash I going to get by the end of this year rather than just have a number of what I would have "if I held the current positions for 1 year". This is because many things can happen in 365 days so having my portfolio have the same positions for a whole year is unrealistic so a better metric should be used.

-the Paperboy