Dividend Duchess: March 2020 Stock Picks And Recession Tutorial

Each month, I have an investing lesson with my 5th grade daughter. This culminates in a stock purchase for her "Dividend Duchess" Portfolio.
We fund this account with my Seeking Alpha Contributor earnings and Lucy chips in 20% of her allowance.
We use some basic screens, easy for an 11-year old to implement - starting with Dividend Champions and Contenders that she recognizes and understands.
Don't Panic At The Disco
This month's lesson with Lucy is an interesting one. It's the first time in her five-month investing career that the markets are down, as well as her account value. This is a great opportunity to introduce the concepts of unrealized paper losses/gains. I also brought up the reality of a potential bear market and/or recession in our financial discussion. The goal is to get her comfortable with the extremes she will inevitably encounter through her long investing life. This month's tutorial emphasizes staying the course and remaining focused and diligent with our strategy - no matter if the markets are shattering all-time highs or spinning down the drain. Repeat after me: Long. Term. Horizon.
With that said, it's time for us to put away the Life and Monopoly board games and have a good old round of "Stock Investing with Dad". Another month of instilling financial repetition and consistency. Slowly growing muscle memory for her investing brain and building financial literacy and monetary habits that will snowball and compound wealth over her lifetime. Parents - don't rely on schools for these life lessons!
Ok, enough jibber-jabber. I'm taking Lucy skiing after today's lesson, so we better get to it.
Dividend Raise Announcement
The day after purchasing United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) last month, it announced a dividend increase of 5%. This was a fantastic real-life demonstration of the power of compounding dividend income. The fact that my daughter gets excited at the news of a dividend raise makes for one happy pappy!
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