Rocky’s Weekly Stock Picks

Can we still play the “Holiday Season” card and get away with easy and safe picks?

Given the condition of the market, the answer is Yes!
We will point out that with the New Year, fixed distributions are almost guaranteed to be adjusted to more accurately reflect the current share prices. Dynex Capital, for example, has seen a significant decrease in share price and is annualizing higher than it “should” be.

1. USDP - $3.16, ex-div likely in February, options trade monthly. This LP has, in its short history of distributions, paid quarterly. Returns are annualized at 15.63%
   
   The TLDR here is that it’s oil and biofuels. We can dig it.
   
   

2. DX -$12.72, ex-div likely in January, options trade monthly. This REIT pays monthly and is annualizing at 12.26%.
   
   

3. TAST -$1.36, no current dividends., monthly options. Carrol’s Restaurant Group is a definite Buy for us. McDonald’s has launched their first fully automated store, meaning BK won’t be far behind. Full automation is going to be a boon for QSR.
   
   Besides not having all the costs associated with traditional employees, robots can be depreciated. Nice!
   

4. DOCU -$55.42, options trade weekly. We don’t have $5500 laying around (and if we did, we’d max out our IRA before doing anything else), so we won’t be writing covered calls anytime soon. Maybe spread trading…maybe.
   
   Mostly we’re just looking at this as being the bottom of DocuSign’s share price. Maybe they dip as low as $45, but we strongly doubt that. They’ve gotten some pretty nice corporate contracts lately. Nothing too crazy that we’re aware of, but enough to suggest that this company is going to do just fine in the coming years.
   

5. LTC -$35.53, options trade monthly, ex-div around the 20th of each month. (January hasn’t been announced yet). This REIT shows an annualized return of 6.42%, and has been relatively stable over the past couple of years.
   
   Even in the long-term this has been a solid security. While it seems to follow the market overall, the fluctuations in nominal price aren’t so wild as to present a serious threat to capital security. Especially since we’re really here for the distribution, not potential appreciation.