The plunging markets have led to some big declines in my Portfolio value.  Thankfully though, I haven’t experienced any dividend freezes or cuts for my stocks yet.  That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if my Portfolio didn’t see a few over the coming months.

However, those lower stock prices mean better stock values for new purchases, and for reinvested dividends.  This of course results in faster growth of my forward dividend income.  So, there’s a glimmer of light amid all the market darkness.

Despite the market turmoil in March, dividends rolled in as steadily as ever.  This month I had a blowout total of dividends come my way.  It was on the heels of strong YoY growth, too.  Dividend raises cooled off in March compared to the first two months of the year, but it still resulted in more forward dividend income than last March.

There was a decent amount of forward dividend income generated from my Portfolio transactions, which remained elevated again this month.  I continued my Portfolio re-allocation, while also investing a small amount of cash.

Lots to discuss here, but let’s start with March dividends for my Portfolio…

 

Dividend Income

 

In March, I raked in a total of $1,327.51 in dividends.  This was a record total for any month, and my first time crossing the $1,300 threshold!

YoY growth came in at a stout 22.87% when compared to the $1,080.42 from March 2019.  I’ll take that growth any time.  This was my first time eclipsing 20% YoY growth since last September – six months ago.

An amazing collection of 22 companies paid me a dividend this month.  I think this may be a record, too.

What stood out to me this month was the record total of triple-digit dividend payers.  There were 5 this month.  I don’t believe I’ve had more than 2 in any prior month.

Qualcomm (QCOM) remained my largest dividend payer in quarter-ending months, delivering $126.39.  That was followed by four more triple-digit payers in Exxon Mobil (XOM), T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), Pepsico (PEP) and Broadcom (AVGO).  Three of these four were first-time triple-digit dividend payers for me.

XOM was able to cross $100 thanks to some purchases over the past 3 months.  TROW reached $100 with a monster dividend raise in February.  This is the 2nd time PEP brought at least $100 to me.  AVGO impressively delivered over $100 in its dividend debut for me – I guess you could say I aggressively built this position.

My smallest March dividend payment came from Kontoor Brands (KTB), at $6.25.  No real surprise here as KTB is my smallest position.

The increased dividend amounts from XOM and 3M Co. (MMM) 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.  The higher amounts from TROW, Blackrock (BLK), Union Pacific (UNP) and Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) look strong.

I had a few dividend payout reductions this month, which is abnormal.  However, this was primarily the result of some of the selling/trimming I’ve been doing during my Portfolio reallocation.  There were reductions from Gilead Sciences (GILD), VF Corp (VFC), Crown Castle International (CCI), and Realty Income (O).  While the GILD, CCI & O decreases were related to selling, the VFC reduction stemmed from the KTB spinoff last year.  The CCI dividend is my last for the foreseeable future, as I closed out this position during my selling.

Six new dividend payers are listed compared to last year.  This group of six was led by AVGO with its triple-digit dividend.  However, the other new arrivals are welcomed, too.  These include TCF Financial (TCF), The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), Wells Fargo (WFC), UnitedHealth Group (UNH) and KTB.

Only one stock no longer paid me a dividend this March, and that was Target (TGT).  TGT exited my Portfolio in January as the result of a covered call option assignment.

As usual, I reinvested all dividends into the stocks that paid them, resulting in an additional forward dividend income boost of $52.71.  This exceeded my previous monthly high by a wide margin.  I’d never hit the $40 mark, let alone $50.  Those lower stock prices offered at least one benefit to my Portfolio.

As a result of the reinvested dividends in March, I purchased nearly 17.8 new shares of stock.  I added over 2.4 shares from reinvesting the XOM dividend alone.  My QCOM reinvestment almost netted 2 shares as well.

 

Dividend Raises

March dividend raises certainly slowed down after exiting the busy period from last October to this past February.  However, the quantity of raises was still good.  They were just not of the same magnitude.

In March, I had 5 companies announce a dividend raise.  That’s one less than last month, but a healthy total for sure.

Of the 5 raises, I’d say 1 was good, 2 were adequate, and 2 were as expected but left me longing for more.

My best raise was the first of the month.  It came from General Dynamics (GD) which announced a 7.84% raise.  This was a slowdown compared to last year, but I’ll happily take it.

Next up was Gentex (GNTX) with a 4.35% raise.  The company has slowed its dividend growth rate to the mid single digits in the past couple of years.  I’m hoping they get back to the upper single digits next time around.

After nearly two years without announcing a dividend raise, QCOM delivered a boost in March.  It was a 4.84% dividend increase.  With QCOM being one of my top Portfolio positions, this raise of less than 5% still led to my biggest boost from a single raise in March.  It rang up $24.70 in new forward dividend income.

Lastly, I received the typical incremental quarterly dividend raises from a couple of my REITs, W.P. Carey (WPC) and O.  The WPC raise was 0.19%, while the O raise was 0.22%.  The comparatively smaller raises delivered from my REITs was one of the reasons I’ve been trimming them from my Portfolio.

 

 

All totaled, these dividend raises contributed $44.57 to my additional forward dividend income.

I’d have to invest $1,273.43 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 3.50% in order to equal the same boost to my annual forward dividend income that these dividend raises provided.

While this stopped my 2-month streak of having a triple-digit increase in forward dividend income from raises, I managed to beat last year’s March boost that I obtained from dividend raises.  So there was some progress there.

As we move into Q2’20, who knows what to expect with regard to dividend raises.  I suspect we’ll see some companies deliver as usual, while others get more conservative given the current economic environment.  Even others will freeze or cut their dividend in an order to stabilize their current cash flow.

In April, I hope to hear annual raise announcements from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Procter & Gamble (PG).  I also expect to hear from XOM, although the most doubt I have regarding a possible raise lies here.  My schedule also says it would be possible to hear news from Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI), but I can’t imagine a raise is coming from OHI.  I think I’d be happy with OHI maintaining their current dividend.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

I made plenty of transactions in March.  All totaled, there we 18 transactions… 6 sales involving 5 different companies, and 12 buys involving 9 companies.

The company with multiple sales was CCI, which ended up being a total sale by the time I was done.  Two companies had multiple purchases.  There was AVGO which I purchased three times, and Automatic Data Processing (ADP) which I purchased twice.  Included in my dozen purchases were 3 initiated positions: Sysco (SYY), The Walt Disney Co. (DIS), and Microsoft (MSFT).

My transactions continued the re-shaping of my Portfolio.  You can discover every company that I bought and sold in March in the following pair of posts.

 

Recent Transactions – Reallocation

Recent Transactions – Reallocation #2

 

When the month was over, I made a net investment of $1,318.44.  With the investment, I was able to register $105.81 in additional forward dividend income.  That’s net yield of over 8%!

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2020, I 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 progresses.

With the big decline in stock prices thus far in 2020, my initial projections for the year are having to change.  I expect to see an even bigger increase in the ‘Reinvested Dividends’ category as a result of reinvesting at drastically lower prices.  On the other hand, the expected income I was projecting from ‘Dividend Raises’ is in jeopardy, as many companies will most likely slow down their dividend growth given the current economic climate, assuming they don’t freeze or cut their dividends instead.  It’s possible to see an uptick in the ‘Investment of Capital’ category as well thanks to lower stock prices bringing higher share totals purchased.  Of course, increased forward dividend income amounts from ‘Reinvested Dividends’ and ‘Investment of Capital’ assumes my companies avoid the frozen or cut dividends.  There’s plenty of uncertainty in my forward dividend income projections now compared to at the beginning of the year.

 

 

The additional forward dividend income generated in March was $203.09.  I reached the $200 mark that I couldn’t quite touch in February.

My forward dividend income from Dividend Raises has been boosted by $345.23 in just 3 months.  This is already half of last year’s total from dividend raises.  Keeping up this momentum looks to be getting more difficult by the day though.

Even my Investment of Capital total has reached better than half of last year’s total.  I’m still hoping to invest about $7,600 more during 2020, so beating last year’s total is certainly doable.

Now for the 3rd straight month, I showed YoY improvements from all 3 dividend income sources.  I can’t imagine this can continue much longer, but who knows.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.  Thanks to my record dividend total in March, I had to make another upward adjustment to the Y-axis scale to accommodate the number!

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.  I have just over $2,900 at the quarter pole for 2020.  Definitely more work to do if I’m going to reach $12K for the year.

 

Summary

March notched a record month for my Portfolio on the dividend front.  I collected over $1,327 in dividends from 22 different dividend payers, sporting just shy of 22.9% YoY growth.  Big numbers all around!

I recorded over $52 of new forward dividend income from my dividend reinvestments in March, too.  Another record total for any month.

Dividend raise announcements continued at a nice clip, as I noted 5 more in March.  The raises resulted in over $44 of new forward dividend income, with over half of that total coming from the QCOM raise.

I had 18 transactions in March, 6 sales and 12 purchases.  It was a net investment of a little over $1,318, resulting in nearly $106 of new forward dividend income.

Counting all 3 income sources, I saw my total additional forward dividend income increase by $203.  Also, for the 3rd month in a row, all 3 of my income sources rose YoY.

While my Portfolio value took a big hit in March, my Portfolio is delivering good results when in comes to dividends.  The question is… Can my Portfolio keep delivering those good dividend results in the coming months without being impacted by the changing world we live in?

 

Have you been happy with the steadiness of the dividends your portfolio is delivering in these uncertain times?  Or have you already been negatively impacted by dividend freezes, suspensions and cuts?  Please share in the Comments!

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