Recent Buys, April 2019

Travel Gremlin here to discuss two recent buys. The month is very young, and yet I am already making moves and adding to my accounts.  On top of that work seems to be getting busier, and this includes a brief trip out of town.  Sadly the trip is only for 1 night and I will not get a chance to see much of where I am going (womp, womp).  Also, having a 1 year old can be a challenge, so I do feel bad for my wife having to deal with our little ball of energy on her own.   All of this is a reminder to stay focused on my push to eliminate debt and move towards financial independence. That being said, both purchases are in retirement accounts, but the focus will be back on taxable accounts for most of the remainder of the year.  So, what did I buy?

1st: Yesterday, I added shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) in my Roth account.  I bought 17 shares, with a total cost of $1,093.36 ($63.91 / share, plus commission).  Once again, had I waited a single day my yield would be much higher.  The current yield was 2.77% at the time of purchase. For a detailed summary of their history, etc. please visit: WBA's Seeking Alpha Profile.

WBA joins CVS as the pharmacies in my portfolio.  There is a lot of discussion right now as to how they can both manage to survive with Amazon (AMZN), Walmart (WMT), Costco (COST), and other players competing in the space.  This coupled with the Opioid Crisis in the USA, and there is definite reason to doubt whether there is space for so many players.  Maybe to an extent this is true, and but at its core business mail delivery of medications has some substantial safety concerns that will need to be addressed.

Not just privacy, but the fact is online companies will be held to a much higher burden of proof when checking that no mistakes are made.  This would make integrated companies like CVS, with their purchase of Aetna, have an advantage.  WBA has the ability to match CVS in terms of tracking their patients, and this will be critical as the amount of drugs and their uses continues to rise.  For this reason, I do not fear the AMZNs of the world.  All it takes is 1 mistake by 1 company, and without human interaction the chances of this will likely increase.  Also, WBA is a dividend aristocrat, with 42 years in the bank!

2nd: Today, I added shares of Matthews International Corp (MATW) in my IRA account.  I bought 29 shares, with a total cost of $1,069.77 ($36.65 / share, plus commission).  The current yield is 2.15%. For a detailed summary of their history, etc. please visit: MATW's Seeking Alpha Profile.

MATW is an industrial company company that makes memorialization products.  What are those?  They are mainly gravestones, urns, etc.  This is a bet that current and future generations will not live forever.  The main risks here are 1 - people get buried less, which is fine as MATW has other products; and 2 - people learning to live forever (so far Keith Richards makes me question my original statement about people not living forever).

So far, MATW is a neat purchase with a good growth and dividend histories.  They play in a niche market with the other major player being Service Corporation International (SCI).  It may be a bit morbid to like the stock, but I see that their growth (I say that not in the sense of 'yay more dead people', you know what I mean!) will continue and both will be steady eddies for a while.  MATW has 24 years of growth, rubbing up against aristocrat territory.  MATW also has other smaller lines of business - which are far less interesting!

These purchases will add $53.12 to my forward 12 month dividend income.

I will update my portfolio page at the end of the month.

What do you think of WBA and MATW?

- Gremlin
- Long WBA, CVS, WMT, and MATW