Hello again!  I’m excited to be starting a new year of dividend income posts.  It’s another chance to track my dividend totals and see myself get one step closer to financial independence.

A couple of weeks ago I laid out some 2020 Portfolio Goals for myself.  Obviously, January represents my first step in the year-long journey to reach those goals.

It’s always helpful to get off to a fast start when striving for any goal, and I feel like I did that in January.  I’ll just need to keep building on it.

While I didn’t set any overall records in January, I did have my strongest quarter-beginning month ever.  YoY income growth wasn’t record-breaking either, but I was able to crack double-digits.

Where I really made some progress this month was in the additional forward income department.  And I did it while posting a negative net investment of new capital.  Intrigued?  Keep reading…

Let’s not wait any longer… bring on the dividend income from January!

 

Dividend Income

In January, I was able to rake in $792.74 in dividends.  It was a good run at $800, but I came up a bit short.  Still, it was my highest January total ever, not to mention my best ‘first month of the quarter’ ever.

YoY growth came in at 10.70% when compared to the $716.10 from January 2019.  In general, I’d like to be closer to 15% YoY growth, but it’s just one month, and I have several months left to bring up the average.

A total of 16 companies paid me a dividend this month.  All of the payers came in above $25, so that was nice to see.

My largest dividend payment of the month came from Pepsico (PEP), topping the century mark at $100.82.  Hopefully, PEP will have some company in the triple-digit club by this same time next year.

My smallest dividend payment of January was delivered by Cisco Systems (CSCO).  This was my first dividend from CSCO, and it came in at $26.25.  CSCO was added to my Portfolio last November.

The increased dividend amounts from Altria (MO), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Air Lease (AL) and Comcast (CMCSA) were each helped by an additional purchase over the past year.  Increased amounts for the other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.

I’m happy to report I didn’t have any dividend payout reductions in January.  Reduced payouts are usually the result of small sales (trimming) on my part, as opposed to seeing a dividend cut.

This January showed 3 new dividend payers compared to last year.  Eastman Chemical (EMN) made its presence felt by delivering north of $40.  REIT Iron Mountain (IRM) wasn’t too far behind arriving with over $32.  Lastly, came the aforementioned CSCO with just over $26.  That a notable debut for all 3 stocks.

A couple of stocks no longer paid me a dividend this January.  Those stocks were Cardinal Health (CAH) and Bank OZK (OZK).  Both were sold due to disappointing performance, with the sale proceeds being reinvested in better prospects.  Declining dividend growth from CAH also contributed to their demise within my Portfolio.

As usual, I reinvested all dividends into the stocks that paid them, resulting in an additional forward dividend income boost of $26.32.  I’m hoping I might be able to achieve at least $25 in additional forward dividend income every month this year due to reinvested dividends, but that may be a bit unrealistic.  I should come close, however.

Continuing what I started last year, I will display the actual number of “New Shares” that were purchased with my reinvested dividends.  In January, my reinvested dividends resulted in the purchase of nearly 11.9 new shares of stock.  This year, I’m targeting an addition of over 150 shares of stock to my Portfolio from reinvested dividends.

 

Dividend Raises

January delivered some impressive dividend raises.  It was impressive not only from the perspective of the quantity of raises, but the forward dividend income increases that came with them.

I had high expectations, and they were still exceeded.  What a way to start off 2020!

In January, I had 7 companies announce a dividend raise.  That’s only one less than my best month ever… done twice, and both times in January.  What a month for raises!

My first raise came courtesy of Realty Income (O).  The raise was 2.2%.  This is typically O’s largest raise during the year, with 4 smaller ones occurring in the quarter-ending months.  I would have liked to have received a larger raise, but the percentage raise was roughly as expected.  Something is better than nothing.

The raises started heating up shortly thereafter.  Fastenal (FAST) came through with a 13.64% raise…. very nice!  Since FAST has one of the larger dividend weights within my Portfolio, the raise led to a nice forward dividend income increase of $36.50, my 2nd best total of the month.

A week later, CMCSA announced a 9.52% raise… just shy of double digits… not too shabby.  This fell short of last year’s raise percentage, but was still very healthy.

On the same day, Air Products & Chemicals (APD) came in above expectations with a 15.52% raise.  Sweet!  This handily eclipsed last year’s increase.  I think this was the most surprising raise for me during the month.

Keeping the party rolling, BlackRock (BLK) extended a tidy 10% raise.  BLK also has a good dividend weighting for me, so a 10% bump here led to a welcome $31.71 boost to my forward dividend income.

After not raising their dividend over the last 4 quarters due to 2 raises in 2018, Quest Diagnostics (DGX) got back on their normal raise announcement schedule.  I was happy about that, but a tad disappointed with the raise percentage of 5.66%.  I would have liked to have seen this a couple of percentage points higher, but I’ll take it nonetheless.

Saving the best for last was Nexstar Media Group (NXST).  NXST has been a strong dividend growth stock since they started paying a dividend back in 2013.  For 6 straight years, NXST has delivered dividend growth of 20% or more.  Make it 7 years now, as NXST did it again, announcing a 24.44% raise, leading to the biggest jump in my forward dividend income from a single stock this month.  I welcomed $45.48 worth of additional forward dividend income.  Thank you NXST!

 

All totaled, these dividend raises contributed a whopping $162.81 to my additional forward dividend income.  This boost was better than any monthly amount I recorded in 2019, and my 2nd best monthly total ever, trailing only Feb. 2018 in that regard.  This will be a high bar to clear in the remaining months of 2020.

I’d have to invest $6,097.75 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 2.67% in order to equal the same boost to my annual forward dividend income that these dividend raises provided.  Dividend raises are the best!… just saying.  🙂

Looking forward, I’m expecting more good raises in February, both in quantity and quality.  I expect to hear raise announcements from Aflac (AFL), which didn’t announce last month, as well as from Gilead Sciences (GILD), CSCO, T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), Main Street Capital (MAIN), and perhaps from Union Pacific (UNP) and PEP, too.  I’m hoping to get another triple-digit boost to my forward dividend income, but we’ll see how it shakes out.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

It was a strange month when it came to new capital investment.  You see I didn’t actually make any investment, despite making 10 separate purchases during January.  Confused?  Well, my month started with a couple of sales.  See the following post for the details.

Recent Sell – TGT & O

This left me with a nice chunk of cash to re-deploy.  With the 10 purchases I made, I reinvested most of those sale proceeds, but not all.  So, I effectively had a negative net investment in my Portfolio.  You can find out what I bought by reading the following pair of posts.

Recent Buys – Crazy 8!

Recent Buy – CAT & AVGO

As I closed out the month, I still had $369.02 left to invest.  However, since I was able to reinvest in stocks that provided a higher average dividend yield than the stocks I sold, I was able to obtain $141.47 in additional forward dividend income.  Wow, I effectively pulled out investment dollars, but was able to increase my forward dividend income…. a unusual month indeed.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In the new year, I’ll continue tracking my additional forward dividend income generated each month from the trifecta of sources: reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and new capital investment.

I’ll be showing 2019’s totals, too, so that we can compare as the year transpires.

I’m looking forward to producing better totals from all 3 sources than I was able to record last year.  An increase in the ‘Reinvested Dividends’ category should be no problem given that I anticipate reinvesting all my dividends into the stocks that paid them.  After a strong start in January, I’m optimistic that I might receive better ‘Dividend Raises’ than last year (yet still not as good as in 2018).  I’m also optimistic that I can surpass last year’s total in the ‘Investment of Capital’ category.  Heck, I already posted a triple-digit month without even investing anything, but that won’t happen too often.  However, I still have all my expected capital to invest over the course of the year, too.

 

The additional forward dividend income generated in January was $330.60.  This was an outstanding start to the year.  As you can see, this was over $200 better than last January, and better than any month last year.  Even better, there were improvements from all 3 sources compared to last January.

Since my planned capital investment will most likely top out around $10K for the year, I would imagine that ‘Dividend Raises’ will have the best total by year’s end.  That would make it the 3rd year in a row.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.  It was a good start to the year with close to $800 in dividend income.

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.  Surpassing last year’s total always looks like a daunting task when starting out the year, but I’m sure I can do it.  It’s a only a matter of time and staying diligent.

 

Summary

As we close the books on our first month of 2020, I was able to collect over $792 in dividends, on 10.7% YoY growth.  A good start, no doubt, but that’s not where the excitement resided in January.

January was all about my additional forward dividend income.  Huge strides were made in that department.  All 3 of my sources contributed significantly, powering me to a boost of $330.60, my best monthly total in nearly two years.  Awesome.

Dividend raises were plentiful in January, with raise percentages on average coming in better than last year.  It will be terrific if that can persist throughout the year, but let’s first see if the same occurs next month.

I had 12 transactions in January, 2 sales and 10 purchases.  Yet, it didn’t result in a net investment.  However, despite that, I still managed to boost my forward dividend income by investing in stocks that have a higher yield than the ones I sold.

It was good dividend progress to start the year.  Let’s see if I can keep it up over the course of 2020.

 

Did you start the year with a flurry of activity like me?  Do you feel you got off to a quick start toward your annual dividend goals?  Please share in the Comments!

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