This month was a rough one on the portfolio thanks to the Coronavirus fears really tanking the market the last two weeks of the month. The last week of February was the worst week in the stock market since the recession, but I tried to use some of the dips to the advantage of my long-term portfolio. You never know when the bottom will come, so my strategy in dips is to just dollar cost average when I see good opportunity.
I made the first move of the month on 2/3/20, which was a pre-planned dollar cost average into my index fund account (from my commissions made via Q4, 2019), which I plan to later use on a third home. I simply invested $2,000 into my preferred Vanguard index funds (VIGAX).
I didn’t make another move until mid-month, because in my mind the market was too inflated. The next move was on 2/18/20, when I did a monthly dollar cost average of $850 into VIGAX again:
On 2/21/20 I noticed some market weakness, a slight pullback (the first from the Coronavirus). At the time I didn’t know the market would tank of the next week, but I did try to take advantage with a couple small purchases I saw as a bargain at the time from the pullback. I did have about $800 cash in my Robinhood stock account at the time and was trying to put it into play.
BUY - 1 share of FB @ $209.69
BUY - 1 share of DIS @ $138.75
On 2/26/20 the market had tanked the last two days and I heard Jim Cramer on his show say to start buying a little bit of the stocks you like at this point. I know a lot of people are thinking, why buy Disney, they are going to see a decline in park attendance due to the Coronavirus, but this stock had the biggest pullback of all my current stocks at the time and I think the Disney Plus subscriptions could counter the losses from park attendance. I also issued another $2,000 in my Vanguard index fund, as planned from my Q4 2018 commissions. I had planned to put this money in first week of March, but decided to send it a week early trying to time a market bottom.
BUY - 2 shares of DIS @ $127.82
On 2/28/19, I saw some market weakness, still had about $400 in cash to play with and added some additional funds to buy some stocks I like at really good prices:
BUY - 4 shares of DIS @ 115.59
BUY - 2 shares of V @ $176.60
BUY - 1 share of AAPL @ $265.68
As noted above, I think Disney Plus will offset the losses from park attendance. On Visa, this stock has been a beast for decades, I want to buy this stock on any pullback. Coronavirus won’t stop people from making transactions online. I also took the opportunity to buy a stock I love in Apple on a huge pullback. Maybe they will lose some money short-term on sales in China, but Apple is a long-term buy for me, as are all of these investments.