A friend of mine keeps posting every day about how much money she has lost in the stock market. I finally had to comment on her post: “Stop checking your account. And if you haven’t sold, you haven’t really lost anything yet.”

We all know that’s an oversimplification. To know if you’re actually down, you’d have to know your cost basis and not just look at your portfolio value day after day.

It’s been astonishing, so many people have wanted to explain to me how the markets work the past few weeks. I know a lot of these people from the music or yoga scene, and they’ve never asked me what I actually do for a living (since neither of those hobbies pay my bills).

Once we get past my CV, I pose the question: What would you do if your favorite pair of pants went on sale?

After a pause, most people say they would probably buy another pair at a great price. If you liked it at the market price, why wouldn’t you like it when it’s on sale?

How long do you plan on holding your stocks?

Another pause, and then usually the response is “until retirement.”

So, if you plan to hold these stocks for several more years, wouldn’t you want to buy more shares when the company you already like is on sale? Especially if you believe stocks will go up between now and your retirement?

Most people believe that, which is why we collectively put the pressure of retirement on our stock portfolios.

Know What You Have and Your Cost Basis

I’m not knocking people who have retirement accounts and/or financial advisors. I don’t recommend a lot of funds, but they can be simple ways to get the benefit of the stock market with little effort. But you’re a Mauldin Economics and Dividend Digest reader, and you are here to make your money work harder for you.

To start, you need to know what’s in your account and how much money you have contributed to the account. That is the only way to know if you’re actually up or down on your investments. Just because your account is worth less today than it was yesterday doesn’t mean you’ve “lost money.”

Ideally, you want to know your cost basis or how much you’ve put into every position. We might talk about “the market” going up or going down, but in reality, there are over 4,000 publicly traded companies in the US. At any given moment some of the stocks are going up and some of them are going down.

I said last week that the market is in a rotation, which further emphasizes that parts of a well-balanced portfolio will go up… while other parts go down. You cannot adapt your buying strategy to maximize market movements if you don’t know exactly what you’re working with.

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What Everyone Wants to Know

Once we get past agreeing on buying things on sale, I inevitably get asked what stocks I think are the best deal right now.

My first response is always: any long-term holding you plan to continue holding where the current price is lower than your cost basis. These are stocks that are truly on sale for you. You liked them at your original buying price, you want to collect them for some future goal, so don’t miss out on a sale.

The current rotation has put some of my favorite stocks—such as Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), Philip Morris (PM), and AT&T (T)—above my recommended buy-up-to prices. I’ve mentioned them all here before and hope you’re sitting on nice gains on them right now.

One of my favorite Bedrock Income plays to buy right now, however, is Kimberly-Clark (KMB). It’s a stock you can probably buy and hold forever. I can’t see a future where we don’t use toilet paper, diapers, and paper towels. Shares were down 4% last week, which matters, because shares are trading close to the price needed to lock in my 3.5% minimum yield. The company also recently raised its dividend for the 53^rd consecutive year.

The share price drop and the new $1.26 per quarter dividend is the only reason we can lock in our minimum yield right now. We can use the same formula I explained last week to find our recommended buy-up-to price: annual dividends divided by the decimal equivalent of our desired yield.

The result shows us that you’d need to buy shares for under $144 to lock in at least 3.5%.

I also like Business Development Companies (BDCs) right now. Many BDCs were already on sale because of the overall private equity landscape. The latest market slide has resulted in even higher dividend yields. These should be considered Current Yield positions with a target hold time of a year or two. We could see dividends cut temporarily, but recover in 2026.

My favorite is Hercules Capital (HTGC) as it focuses primarily on the technology and life sciences spaces… and it pays out 9.8% at current prices.

Finally, I like shipping companies right now. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the markets and shipping is about to go through a year of flux. There are three that I’m bullish on in our open Yield Shark portfolio.

There are always bargains in the market if you know when and where to look. Now is an opportune time. Use it to your advantage, no matter what your investing strategy.

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For more income, now and in the future,

Kelly Green

• AT&T T
• cost basis for stocks
• Enterprise Products Partners EPD
• Hercules Capital HTGC
• Kimberly-Clark KMB
• Philip Morris PM

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