I purchased 10 shares in AppFolio (APPF) for $63.25 today. They do not pay a dividend but are a growth company.

AppFolio is a cloud services company. They provide Software As a Service (SAAS) to 2 different vertical markets. Their main product is for property management companies. They are one of the largest (I think largest, but not positive) property management software companies for the independent property manager. Their second market is law offices.

I intend to hold them long term and will likely purchase more shares.

During January 2019, I received $412.38 in dividends. Look at monthly recaps from other months. For other months visit my Monthly Dividend Recap page.

Also during the month I purchased and sold covered call options. However this month I had a couple of options that I lost money on due to having to purchase to close on a rapid increasing share prices on a couple of my positions. I netted a mere $.59 during the month. An important lesson is to close an option before earnings are reported.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been several months since I last posted a stock pick. The market has been very volatile of late however, making stock picking difficult.

US security markets are closed today. This will give you some time to research my latest stock pick to see if it would be a good fit for your portfolio.

I purchased 25-shares of United Bankshares Inc (NASDAQ:Unfortunately, we could not get stock quote for “UBSI” at this time. on Tuesday for $34 a share. United Bankshares is the holding company of United Bank, a regional bank operating in the mid Atlantic area with locations in 5 eastern states plus DC and traces their roots back to 1839 as well as non bank subsidiaries offering other financial and investment services.

UBSI is currently paying a 3.76% dividend ($1.36), and have been increasing their dividend regularly for 45-consecutive years, although not every year has seen a dividend increase.

Their 52-week range is $31.01-$39.95. Their 50-day moving average is $34.34 and 200-day moving average is $36.65.

Their Trailing P/E is 17.05 and a projected forward P/E is 13.43.

My intention is to hold long-term and purchase additional shares of UBSI. Once I hold 100 shares I will start selling covered calls options to increase my cash flow in this holding. By combining options premiums with dividend payments I anticipate having approximately a 15% annualized positive cash flow in USBI. At this stage of my life I will have the dividend portion on automatically reinvest in additional shares of USBI (“dividend reinvestment program” or “DRIP” for short”) while I will use the options premium to purchase other securities. Once I retire my goal is to be able to live off the dividends paid and the options premiums I collect, without ever selling the underlying securities.

I have been (and still are) light on the financial sector and will likely be adding more financial stocks in the coming months.

I believe one of the best deals currently is AT&T (NYSE:T 29.30 -0.15 -0.52%). When something thinks of AT&T they typically think of a telecommunication company, which sells cell phone service, telephone lines, fiber connections, perhaps satellite TV (DirecTV), cable TV, and over the top TV (DirecTV Now and Watch TV). In other words AT&T is a content connector. They connect you to content.

And this assessment of AT&;T would be right, if this was still May. In June, AT&T morphed from being a content connector into being a content connector AND a content provider with the purchase of Time Warner (known post merger as Warner Media). AT&T now owns power house brands such as HBO, Cinemax, Turner Broadcasting (TBS, TNT, CNN, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, Bloomberg, and TruTV) , Warner Brothers (one of the big 6 film studios), DC Entertainment/ DC Comics, and much more. They operate NBA.com and NBA TV, NCAA.com, PGATour.com, PGA.com, and much more.

Check out this list of assets now owned and controlled by AT&T.

This merger now makes AT&T the 5th largest company in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. However, Wall Street, while knowing about the merger doesn’t seem to understand what AT&T just did and the moat they just created. For a quick exercise look up T on the stock brokerage of your choice and read the company profile. There is basically no mention of the WarnerMedia subsidiary. Basically Wall Street is comparing them to Verizon (VZ 53.95 +0.38 +0.71%), Centurylink (CTL 14.21 +0.09 +0.64%), etc, when really they are a combination of Verizon and Disney (DIS 111.41 -1.25 -1.11%).

AT&T closed slightly down on Friday to $32.26 a share. They are down -15.6% over the last 52-weeks, and nearly at their 52-week low. They are slightly above their 90-day moving average ($31.87) and below their 200-day moving average ($34.11).

AT&T pays an amazing dividend of $2 per year (current yield 6.17%), which they have continuously paying (and increasing) for the past 34-years!
This is the second time I am choosing T as a MikesStockPick. I previously purchased shares for $31.07 in July and for $31.965 in August.