Investment Goals

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854)

In order to try and encourage me to be more disciplined in my approach I have tried to set up a series of goals for each year.

I will review each year halfway through the year (i.e. early July) and may revise some of the final targets for the year after that.

For future years, I will include provisional goals which will be "formally" set at the start of the year in question.

2014

As a result, of my periodic reviews (see my half-yearly and Q3) I revised a couple of the targets for the full year. For a fuller breakdown of my achievement of my targets read by 2014 in review post.

1. Invest at least £6,000 in at least 10 stocks over the year (inc. one foreign equity). ACHIEVED
1. REVISED: Invest at least £8,000 in at least 12 stocks (inc. one foreign equity/ETF). ACHIEVED
2. REVISED: Invest at least £12,000 in at least 15 companies (inc. one foreign equity) ACHIEVED
2. Achieve a portfolio dividend yield of more than 3.5%. ACHIEVED
3. Earn £200 from dividends. ACHIEVED
1. REVISED: Earn £250 from dividends. ACHIEVED
2. REVISED: Earn £350 from dividends (an average of £29.17 per month). FAILED
4. Achieve a Beta volatility value for my portfolio of less than 1. ACHIEVED
1. REVISED: Achieve a Beta volatility of 0.9 or less. ACHIEVED
2. REVISED: Achieve a Beta volatility of 0.85 or less. ACHIEVED
5. Portfolio spread over at least 5 different sectors. ACHIEVED
1. REVISED: Portfolio spread over at least 9 different sectors. ACHIEVED
6. Reduce equity weight divergence from the median to under +/-18%. ACHIEVED
1. REVISED: Reduce equity weight divergence from the median to under +/-17%. ACHIEVED

2015 

At the start of the year I sat down to put together a couple of my investing targets for the year. These will, no doubt, be revised throughout the year as well as have new ones added when they seem appropriate. I reviewed my progress in the first quarter in April and a half-yearly review in July.

1. Invest at least £6,000 over the year. ACHIEVED
2. Retain a portfolio dividend yield of more than 4%.
1. REVISED: Retain a portfolio yield of more than 1.25 times the FTSE All Share yield. FAILED
3. Earn £800 or more from dividends (an average of £66.67 per month).
1. REVISED: Earn £1,100 or more from dividends (an average of £91.67 per month) ACHIEVED
4. Reach a "Work Freedom Day" of 3 February 2015.
1. REVISED: Reach a Work Freedom Day of 10 February 2015 ACHIEVED
5. Retain a portfolio Beta volatility value less than 0.85.
6. Hold at least 25 different equities but fewer than 30 (not including spin-offs).
1. Hold more than 30 but less than 45 different equities. ACHIEVED
7. Reduce trading charges to below 1.3% of total invested in year. ACHIEVED
8. Increase diversification
1. Include at least one property investment (REITs, property funds, etc.) ACHIEVED
2. Include at least one foreign equity investment (foreign equity, or foreign-focused IT/ETF) ACHIEVED

2016

1. Earn more than £1200 from dividends.
2. Hold at least 30 different equities. 
3. Achieve a portfolio dividend yield of more than 4.2%.
4. Retain portfolio Beta volatility value less than 0.8.
5. Reduce trading charges below 1.2% of total invested in year.
6. 5% of portfolio to be held in USA investments.

This is how far I have progressed towards my £1,200 dividend income target for 2016:

For full details of my dividend income see my "Dividends Received" page.

2017 (Provisional)

1. Earn more than £1500 from dividends
2. Reduce trading charges below 1% of total invested in year
3. 10% of portfolio to be held in USA investments

Currently I have a predicted dividend income for the full 2017 year--based on my current holdings and last known dividend values for the full year--as set out below:

[Creative Commons image reproduced from Flickr user Jim Kelly]