October offered up a wild ride in the stock market, but the dividends were as steady as ever…. love that predictability.

Speaking of predictability, once again October was the month I surpassed my previous year’s dividend total.  Of course that leaves the remainder of the year to push the total to a new record.

There were lots of transactions this month, especially compared to last month which was void of any transactions.  Thus, the Portfolio page will have a few more updates than usual.

Year over Year (YoY) dividend gains were good, and several more dividend raises came my way in October, as well.  Definitely lots to like in this month’s report.

Let’s see how I kicked off the 4th quarter when it came to all things dividends…

 

Dividend Income

October’s dividend income came in at $547.61.  It’s been $500+ each month this year… very happy with that.

This dividend total resulted in a welcome 20.91% YoY increase compared to the $452.91 from October 2017.

A total of 13 companies paid me a dividend this month.  The largest amount came from materials company RPM International (RPM), delivering over $81.  RPM has remained my largest holding (even through the recent volatility) since taking over the spot a few months ago.  The smallest amount came from Comcast (CMCSA) with a little over $19.  CMCSA is close to my smallest holding, but one in which I’d like to increase my weighting.

The dividend amounts from Cardinal Health (CAH), Illinois Tool Works (ITW), Realty Income (O) and Nike (NKE) mainly increased, or were significantly helped, thanks to additional purchases over the past year.

Increased amounts for the other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.  That big bump in the Air Lease (AL) dividend is nearly all due to last year’s dividend raise.  Here’s hoping for another big raise this year!

A couple of new dividend payers arrived this October compared to last year.  One is consumer staple Altria (MO), which has held up well during the recent market declines.  The other is CMCSA, which now looks to digest the Sky acquisition from weeks ago.  These two stocks contrast each other in that MO provides a big yield and slower growth, while CMCSA has a lower yield but offers stronger growth prospects.  CMCSA should deliver stronger dividend growth as well, however MO has been quite consistent with 8% dividend growth over the past decade.

October also saw two dividend sources disappear compared to last year.  The first was utility SCANA (SCG).  I happened to get out of SCG just before their dividend cut, although most of the price decline had already occurred.  The stock has held up well as of late, but I don’t know if they are any closer to their merger with Dominion Energy (D), as I haven’t followed them as closely now that they have exited my Portfolio.  The second stock is Ensign Group (ENSG).  At the time I sold ENSG back in April in the mid $27s I thought they might have been overvalued.  However, the stock has only continued to rise since then, now at nearly $45… amazing.  I think it’s safe to say I was too early on my sale.

In the “Add’l Fwd Inc” column, I show the amount of additional annual forward dividend income that resulted from reinvesting each of this month’s paid dividends.  October saw an addition of $18.81 from this category.  This total was up smartly compared to the first month in Q3 thanks to me fixing a couple of dividend reinvestment snafus with MO and OZK, as well as from falling stock prices.

 

Dividend Raises

Some strong dividend raises came my way in October, making the smaller raise total from September a distant memory.

I had 5 Portfolio companies raise their dividend, and all of them were quite meaningful.

Bank OZK (OZK) was the first to announce a raise (on the 1st day of the month), providing a 5.0% increase.  This is more significant than it may appear, as OZK usually raises every quarter, making this more like a 20% raise should OZK continue with this raise amount in future quarters.  The raise amount of 1 cent is double what OZK has been doing each quarter over the past 3 years.

RPM delivered a raise over 9%.  Considering RPM is my largest holding, this will nicely impact the weighted dividend growth for my Portfolio.

Visa (V) announced another outstanding dividend raise (it’s 2nd of 2018) delivering over 19%.  This followed a 7.7% raise back in January.

Cell tower REIT Crown Castle International (CCI) provided a nice dividend raise, especially for a REIT, at just over 7%.  Higher yield and solid dividend growth is a wonderful combination.

Finally, V.F. Corp (VFC) closed out my October dividend raises with a nearly 11% increase.  I’ll take that any day!  Amazingly, this is the smallest increase for VFC since 2011.

 

These raises contributed $81.75 to my annual forward dividend income.

I’d have to invest $2,898.94 at my portfolio’s average yield of 2.82% in order to equal the same boost to my annual forward dividend income that these dividend raises provided.

Looking to November, I’m projecting another handful of dividend raises for my Portfolio.  I expect to see raises from Air Lease (AL), D.R. Horton (DHI), Hormel Foods (HRL) and Nike (NKE).  I also hope to see raises from Starbucks (SBUX) and Union Pacific (UNP), but these two are less certain since SBUX already provided a raise in June, and UNP already provided two – one in February and one in July.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

As I mentioned earlier, there were lots of transactions in October, after I didn’t have any in September.  October saw 8 purchases and 2 sales.  The majority of the purchases were adds to existing positions, but one was a new Portfolio addition.  Regarding the sales, one was an entire position exit, while one was a partial sale.

Let’s take a brief look as these here.  For the most part, I’m listing these transactions in the order in which they occurred.

 

This first transaction was covered in my Recent Buy – TXN (#2) post.

On 10/5, I added 10 shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) at $102.75/sh.

 

This next bundle of five transactions was discussed in my Recent Transactions (HSY, OHI, ABBV, SWKS, BLK) post.

On 10/8, I closed out my Hershey (HSY) position by selling 48.791 shares at $106.25/sh.

On 10/10, I sold 20 shares of Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI) at $33.33/sh.

On 10/10, I added 14 shares of Abbvie (ABBV) at $93.93/sh.

On 10/10, I added 10 shares of Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) at $85.09/sh.

On 10/16, I added 3 shares of Blackrock (BLK) at $409.30/sh.

 

An option-related transaction was detailed in my Monthly Options Income (Oct. 2018) post.

On 10/13, I purchased 100 shares of DHI at $40.95/sh. when a put option was assigned to me prior to expiration.  DHI is a new position within the Portfolio.

 

Not covered at all until now, was a dividend for 100 shares of OZK I don’t hold in my Portfolio.  I chose to take the dividend from these 100 shares and invest them along with the OZK dividend for the shares I do have in my Portfolio.  It was a small investment of $21 (0.823 shares purchased at ~$25.52/sh.)

 

The two final transactions were not part of a Recent Transactions post, but were instead mentioned in Portfolio Thoughts (Oct. 2018).

On 10/22, I added 14 more shares of ABBV at $84.85/sh.

On 10/24, I added 15 more shares of TXN at $92.87/sh.

 

These transactions resulted in a net investment of $5,286.71, and a net increase of $94.27 in my annual forward dividend income.

 

Summary

YoY growth over 20%, and a total of $547.61 in dividends for October, allowed me to eclipse last year’s dividend total.  Through October, dividend income for 2018 stands at $6,831.56.

My dividend income total also stayed above the $500 level for an 11th consecutive month.  I hope to start a streak of $600 months very soon.

My forward dividend income totals are boosted by the combination of reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of new capital.  I continue to track this trio of income boosters each month this year, in the table below.

‘Dividend Raises’ continue to be the largest contributor to my increasing forward dividend income in 2018.  October brought 5 dividend raises, adding almost $82 to this month’s forward dividend income, and increasing the 2018 total from raises to nearly $799.  Outstanding!  Unfortunately, October’s contribution wasn’t quite big enough to make me think I can reach the $1000 mark for raises in 2018, but maybe something surprising can happen in November.

‘Reinvested Dividends’ continue their steady climb.  I shouldn’t have any trouble crossing the $250 mark by year’s end.

My net purchases in October led to ‘Investment of Capital’ providing the biggest boost (over $94) to my forward dividend income this month.

October’s total of $194.83 in additional forward dividend income has pushed me well past my 2018 annual goal of $8,700.  At the end of October, my annual forward dividend income total reached just over $8,986.  Hitting $9K by year’s end will not be a problem.  I think I may reach $9,150 even in the absence of any new capital investment for the next two months.

 

Did you find any dividend treats in your October totals?  Have you passed your dividend income total from 2017 yet?  What do you want to accomplish within your portfolio during the final two months of the year?  Please feel free to comment.

I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.