All the activity that took place in my Portfolio late in 2018 has calmed down as we start 2019.  During this time, my cash reserves are recouping some of their strength!

The reduced Portfolio activity certainly makes the monthly report go a little faster, so I like that, but there always seems to be plenty to cover regardless.

As usual, I’ll be covering my dividend income, my dividend raises, my new capital investment, and the additional forward income that each of those bring.

Also, with the start of a new year comes the start of a new addition to the monthly report… it’s some extra info about my reinvested dividends – something DRiP investors (and others) should enjoy.  Keep an eye out for that.

I was happy to see the stock market recover some after that brutal Q4’18.  It allowed my Portfolio to rebound a bit.  Hopefully, January set the tone for the remainder of the year.

Let’s see what transpired in January as far as my Portfolio is concerned…

 

Dividend Income

January’s dividend income rang in with a total of $716.10.  This dividend total resulted in an impressive 32.13% YoY increase compared to the $541.98 from January 2018.

A total of 15 companies paid me a dividend this month.  The largest amount came from one of my long-time holdings, Pepsico (PEP), delivering a penny over $95.  The smallest amount came from Comcast (CMCSA) at $19.32.

The increased dividend amounts from PEP, Cardinal Health (CAH), Illinois Tool Works (ITW) and Realty Income (O) were helped by 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.  Take a look at that nice bump from Air Lease (AL).  They delivered a whopping 30% dividend raise last year.

Three new dividend payers arrived this January compared to last.  This included Altria (MO), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) and CMCSA.  Thanks to MO’s generous dividend, it moved right up the list of January dividend payers… already 3rd in the monthly rankings!

Two dividend payers disappeared this January compared to last.  This first was SCANA (SCG), which I sold mid last year.  With a dividend cut looming and a good deal of uncertainty about the buyout from Dominion Energy (D) completing, I decided to exit the position.  The second was Ensign Group (ENSG), which I chose to sell in 2018 as it was looking overvalued – BTW, it apparently wasn’t, as it continued to run up in price.

January saw an additional forward dividend income boost of $22.82 thanks to reinvesting my dividends.  That was despite not reinvesting my CAH dividend, as I looked to avoid having the wash sale rule void the tax loss I harvested on my partial CAH sale late last year.

Last year, I presented the “Add’l Fwd Inc” column, to show the amount of additional annual forward dividend income that resulted from reinvesting each of this month’s paid dividends.  This still remains, but I’ve enhanced it a bit further.  I’ve added another column to show the actual number of “New Shares” that were purchased with the reinvested dividends.  For January, my reinvested dividends resulted in the purchase of over 12 new shares of stock.

Thankfully, my broker allows me to reinvest my dividends (at no cost!), including buying partial/fractional shares.  I certainly don’t overlook this feature, as I know some investors can only reinvest dividends that will purchase whole shares, or reinvesting dividends is found to be too cost prohibitive, or maybe investors don’t even have the option to reinvest dividends at their brokerage.

 

Dividend Raises

2018 was a wonderful year with regard to dividend raises in my Portfolio, and a good chunk of them came in the first couple of months of the year.

Because of this, I was looking forward to announcements from the first month of 2019.  While the additional forward dividend income from January’s dividend raises wasn’t as good as those from last year, I still consider the month to be a grand success, as I had 8 companies announce a dividend raise.  Let’s see what came in…

The first half of January was a tad slow, but things started picking up in the second half.

My first raise of the year came from Bank OZK (OZK).  The 4.76% raise may not look too big, but with OZK announcing raises on a quarterly basis, this can translate into a raise in the high teens should OZK continue to deliver one penny raises each quarter.

O usually provides their best raise of the year in January, then follows with smaller raises in each of the quarter-ending months.  The January raise from O clocked in a bit over 2%.  With expected raises on the order of 0.25% in those quarter-ending months the rest of the year, O may only deliver a 3% raise for entire year, a step down from the 4% in 2018.

Blackrock (BLK) and Fastenal (FAST) both announced decent raises in the middle of the month, with BLK at 5.43% and FAST being better at 7.5%.  Since these positions are a couple of the larger ones in my Portfolio, the boost they provided to my additional forward dividend income was relatively substantial.

CMCSA announced a bigger dividend raise than I expected considering they made the big Sky purchase last year.  They announced a 10.53% raise.  Even though this is one of my smaller positions and its impact on my forward dividend income is not as significant, any time I can get a double digit raise I’m a happy guy.

Air Products & Chemicals (APD) announced a 5.45% raise… a slow down compared to historical growth rates, yet still respectable.  Unfortunately, this raise doesn’t kick in until the May dividend payment.

My biggest January raise was announced by Nexstar Media Group (NXST), which announced a month earlier compared to last year.  It was a stellar 20% increase, leading to a $30+ increase in additional forward dividend income.  I’ll take more of these please.

Finally, Aflac (AFL) closed out the month with a 3.85% raise.  This is a big step down from last year’s raise, but 2018 included two separate announcements.  Let’s hope for a 2nd announcement later in the year to boost the 2019 raise percentage as well.

 

These raises contributed an outstanding $106.81 to my annual forward dividend income.  This is just the 4th time I’ve exceeded $100 for a month.

I’d have to invest $3,721.60 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 2.87% in order to equal the same boost to my annual forward dividend income that these dividend raises provided.

I’m hoping for a solid February with respect to dividend raises as well.  This is despite the fact that it looks like raises in 2019 won’t challenge the amazing ones from 2018.  I’m expecting February raises from Gilead Sciences (GILD), 3M (MMM), Quest Diagnostics (DGX) and T. Rowe Price Group (TROW).  There’s a chance I see a raise from Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) as well.

Perhaps I see raises from Pepsico (PEP), Union Pacific (UNP) and Abbvie (ABBV), too, because they announced ones last February.  However, I don’t expect them this time around, as PEP usually announces in the Spring, while UNP and ABBV had two announcements last year, and I can’t say I know the standard schedule any longer.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

January saw no new capital investment, as I look to replenish my cash coffers.

I didn’t make any Portfolio adjustments in January either (i.e. no swaps of stock).

Thus, there was a $0 increase to my additional forward dividend income due to new investments for January.

I’m not sure if February will see any transactions either, as nothing is currently in the queue.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

This year I will continue with tracking the additional forward dividend income generated each month from the trifecta of sources: reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and new capital investment.

I’m also showing 2018’s totals so that that we can compare as the year goes along.

I anticipate that my Reinvested Dividends total will move higher in 2019, but that I’ll see a reduction in the total from the Dividend Raises and the Investment of Capital.

 

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts available on my Dividends page.  However, I thought I’d start including them in the monthly dividend income report as seeing the charts can often be a better way to look at the numbers over time.

I’ll start with the monthly dividends since 2015.  I’m happy to report that I’ve recorded YoY increases every year, in all months.  This is certainly a streak I hope to continue.

 

On an annual basis, here’s what this looks like…

 

Summary

I’d say it was a great month, despite the lack of new capital investment in January.

First, I had some quality YoY growth which exceeded 32%, leading to over $716 in dividend income.

Second, January brought over 8 dividend announcements to my Portfolio, resulting in over $106 in additional forward dividend income.

Things have been busy this past month, as evidenced by my delay in getting this report out.  I hope to play catch-up in February.  There were a couple of posts that I mentioned in January that I didn’t succeed in delivering.  I’ll leave them on my to-do list for February, as they are a couple of posts I’m looking forward to sharing.  These are:

• the annual review of my Portfolio’s performance in 2018, and
• an examination of my Portfolio’s weighted dividend growth for 2018

 

Did your portfolio get off to a roaring start in 2019?  Please feel free to share in the comments!

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