As you may have surmised by my lack of posting this past month, my time has been truly limited.  Perhaps you noticed that I didn’t even churn out my monthly Portfolio Thoughts post for February.  🙁   That was certainly disappointing for me.  Unfortunately, this may have to last a bit longer… we’ll see.

At a minimum though, I’ll make sure to get out my Monthly Dividend Income post.  It may be a bit later than normal, but here it is.

Portfolio activity remained muted in February, but there is some good dividend income to report, and of course some good dividend raises to share.

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.

Let’s see what happened on the dividend front in February…

 

Dividend Income

February’s dividend income came with a total of $679.04.  This dividend total resulted in an impressive 31.62% YoY increase compared to the $515.89 from February 2018.  This was the 2nd consecutive month with more than 30% YoY growth!

A total of 15 companies paid me a dividend this month (the same as last month).  The largest amount came from Abbvie (ABBV), delivering $115.95.  ABBV was a stock I added to last year.  Those additions and the multiple, and big, dividend raises consequently moved it to the top dividend payer spot this February.  The smallest dividend amount came from D.R. Horton (DHI) at $15.06.  This is only the 2nd dividend I’ve received from DHI, as it was a new purchase in 2018.

The increased dividend amounts from ABBV, Texas Instruments (TXN), 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.  Check out the increased amount from Starbucks (SBUX) thanks to their hefty 20% dividend raise last June, while the boost from Fastenal (FAST) was the result of a couple of dividend raises over the past year.

Three new dividend payers arrived this February compared to last.  This included Nexstar Media Group (NXST), Lowe’s Companies (LOW) and DHI.  NXST and LOW quickly moved into the upper half of this month’s rankings thanks to me establishing healthy positions and benefiting from nice dividend raises.  On the flip side, DHI remains a smaller position with a slightly lower yield, and brings up the rear in the dividend listing.

I’m happy to report that no dividend payers disappeared this February compared to last, which helps keep the dividend income strong.

However, you may have noticed a couple of reduced dividend amounts.  The biggest reduction was from Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI).  I reduced my position in OHI over the course of the past year in order to limit OHI’s dividend weighting in my Portfolio.  I’m happy with the current size of my OHI position at this time.  The second reduction came from Hormel (HRL), after I trimmed the position a bit late last year in order to invest in some other stocks.

February saw an additional forward dividend income boost of $23.11 thanks to reinvesting my dividends.  This just surpassed the total from January.

Last month, I introduced another column in the dividend income table to show the actual number of “New Shares” that were purchased with the reinvested dividends.  For February, my reinvested dividends resulted in the purchase of close to 10 new shares of stock.  I’ll take it!

 

Dividend Raises

February continued the good start to 2019 with regard to dividend raises.  While the number of February dividend raises dwindled a bit compared to January, the amount of forward dividend income increased a bit comparatively.

I had 6 companies announce a dividend raise in February.  This means exactly one third of my Portfolio companies have already announced a raise in 2019.  Hopefully, I’ll see a few companies double up on raise announcements in 2019, just like last year.

Gilead Sciences (GILD) started things off with a nice 10.53% raise… my largest % increase of the month.  While the raise is nice, I’d like to see GILD get their stock price moving north sometime this year.

One day later, 3M (MMM) announced a raise of 5.88%.  Not as booming as last year, but a good raise for a company of their size.

Union Pacific (UNP) didn’t disappoint, with a raise of 10%.  UNP remains aggressive with their dividend raises.  Their stock price has had a nice run up as well.  UNP is nearly the biggest position in my Portfolio these days… it’s muscled up to the #2 spot, right behind RPM International (RPM).

I was happy with the 8.57% boost announced by T. Rowe Price Group (TROW).  Again, a pull back from last year’s raise, but nothing to complain about here.

The announced raise from Pepsico (PEP) was a bit disappointing at 2.96%, but as long as it’s not the start of a long-term trend (and I don’t suspect it will be), I’ll take it.

Lastly, Main Street Capital (MAIN) announced a raise of 2.56%.  This was the smallest raise of the month, but I don’t expect big raises from this BDC.

The raises from PEP and MAIN don’t kick in until after their next dividend payments… so a bit of a wait compared to the others.

I didn’t see a raise from Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) as I was hoping.  They announced a quarter early last year, and I suspect they may be reverting to their old schedule (May).

 

These raises contributed an outstanding $108.37 to my annual forward dividend income.  This is now the 5th time I’ve exceeded $100 for a month, and it barely exceeded last month’s amount of $106.81.

I’d have to invest $3,870.36 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 2.80% in order to equal the same boost to my annual forward dividend income that these dividend raises provided.

After the hot start to 2019, dividend raises in March are expected to cool off significantly.  Right now, only a small raise from W.P. Carey (WPC) is on my radar.  Perhaps one Portfolio company can sneak in an unexpected raise for me.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

For the 2nd month in a row, I had no new capital investment.  My cash coffers didn’t really increase in February either, so it looks like I’ll need to be patient with respect to my next purchase.

Unfortunately, this means there was a $0 increase to my additional forward dividend income due to new investments for February.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

This year I 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.

As noted last month, 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.

 

I’m trailing 2018’s pace by quite a wide margin thus far, partially due to the smaller dividend increases in 2019, but primarily due to the lack of new capital investment.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.

Love all the consistent increases!

 

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

 

Summary

Another good month of dividend income was reported, but the continued lack of capital investment in 2019 is going to result in weaker growth as we move forward in time.

Again, no new capital investment in February.  It makes me wonder what kind of results I might post if I didn’t invest anything at all this year.  I bet it would still look pretty good.

Dividend income crept over the $679 level, on the back of over 31% YoY growth.

February brought another 6 dividend raise announcements to my Portfolio, resulting in over $108 in additional forward dividend income.

On the whole… not too shabby!

 

Have you been adding to your portfolio in 2019, unlike me?  Tell me what I’ve been missing in the comments!  Any bargains you wish to highlight?

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