Investment Goals Updated at Q313

In one of my first posts in January, I outlined my three investment goals for 2013. Since it's officially the end of the third quarter, it's time to provide another update of how I'm progressing toward my goals.

1. Get Rid of Non-Dividend Growers
Done! I got rid of Power Financial Corp in Q1 and Transalta at the start of Q3.  As an added bonus, seven of 24 companies increased their dividend payout during Q3!

2.  Increase my Dividend Income and Total Portfolio Value by 25%
Even before adding some capital to my portfolio at the start of Q4, my portfolio value was up about 27% over its value at YE12. I consider this goal to be completely accomplished. Regarding dividend income, I was holding approximately 5% of my portfolio value in cash at the end of Q3, but still had managed to increase the dividend income of my total portfolio by 22% over the amount at YE12. So long as I deploy my capital in Q4, I should be able to increase the dividend income by over 25% by YE13.

3. Increase my Non-Canadian Investment Holdings from 20% to 25%
Despite 5% of my portfolio being in cash at the end of Q3, almost all of which I plan to deploy in US dollars, I still managed to have US holdings of approximately 23.7% of my total portfolio value. This was a function of a couple US stock soaring, and my earlier actions to shift some of my Canadian funds to US companies.

The last goal I set forth in my January post was to blog at least once a week. This has been my most challenging goal, and I've missed it often in Q3. With a wedding and a month long honeymoon, I simply didn't care to spend time updating my investment blog. Hope to improve on this during Q4, but am not holding my breath.