On 09/07/2001, I bought an initial block of 100 shares of Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), a large pharmaceutical company. It was one of the first individual stocks I ever bought after decades of mutual fund ownership. I was attracted to what I believed was a reasonable price, an impressive earnings record, high profits from blockbuster drugs, the pharmaceutical industry's growth, and PFE's impressively growing dividend.
In the previous decade, the dividend rate had quadrupled and the 25-year dividend growth rate was over 13.5 percent. But in late 2001, PFE resembled a growth stock as much as a dividend stock, yielding only 1.4 percent.
After that first purchase, the price of PFE began to drop. Since I was convinced of the long-term viability of the company, I ignored the paper loss of my original shares and "doubled down" by purchasing more shares in a contrarian move. I ultimately acquired 600 more shares according to this purchase history:
