Is it just me, or does 2021 seem to flying by?  We are already two months into 2021 and I can barely recall how we got here.

Maybe I have too much going on.  Perhaps I need to find a way to slow down and take a look around once in a while.

Even if I’m not paying much attention these days, I know one thing…. my dividends will continue to roll in.  And you know I like that!

Despite those dividends arriving like clockwork, I still need to keep tabs on my Portfolio activity.  You see, this month I had a couple change-ups occur, and both made this month’s results worse than expected.

Dividend income was solid, but YoY growth almost didn’t occur.  This stemmed from a pair of dividend payments I was expecting for February, but which slid into March instead.

In addition, I’m in the middle of an account switch at my brokerage and it’s led to some confusion with regards to getting my dividends reinvested.  This unfortunately impacted my forward dividend income totals from reinvested dividends.

On a brighter note, my expected dividend raises for February came through as expected and led to another terrific month in that regard.  My biggest dividend raise happened to come from one of my top dividend payers, and the result was awesome.  Stick around to see which stock that was.

As for transactions, my Portfolio activity ratcheted up a bit in February.  This was more of a Portfolio re-shaping than investment of new capital.  However, after all the shuffling, I managed to squeak out a small gain in forward dividend income.  As part of the transactions, one stock exited my Portfolio, while two new ones arrived.

Just like in January, my additional forward dividend income got a nice overall boost in February thanks to reinvested dividends, dividend raises and new capital investment.  Once again, the trifecta at work.

Here are all my dividend income details for February…

 

Dividend Income

 

In February, I recorded a dividend total of $794.76.  Unfortunately, this was lower than I was expecting just a month ago thanks to both Fastenal (FAST) and Starbucks (SBUX) moving their normal February dividend payment into the first week of March.  Guess I’ll have to pay more attention to the payment dates, huh?

Monthly YoY growth came in at 1.02% when comparing this February’s dividend total to the $786.77 from February 2020.  I believe this is the lowest YoY growth number I’ve had.  This marginally positive YoY growth number also threatened to break my monthly YoY growth streak, which is thankfully still going at 62 consecutive months.

Needless to say, YoY growth was well short of my target goal of 15%,   However, My YoY growth would have been 15.03% had the FAST and SBUX dividends been paid this month, and DGX been moved back to January, where it normally resides.

A total of 14 companies paid me a dividend in February.  Two of those stocks delivered triple-digit dividend amounts, which of course I always enjoy.

AbbVie (ABBV) was my top dividend payer in February, delivering a dividend payment of $163.16 – a record for any single dividend payment of mine.  A good distance behind, but still providing over $100, was Procter & Gamble (PG) with $103.73.

Realty Income (O) provided my smallest dividend payment of the month at $18.37.  Considering that’s a monthly payment, it doesn’t seem so small after all.

The increased dividend amounts from Lowe’s Companies (LOW) and General Dynamics (GD) 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 YoY dividend gain from ABBV was over $28, and all organic (combination of dividend raises and dividend reinvestment).  Another big organic boost came from Nexstar Media Group (NXST), gaining over $16.

I recorded 2 dividend payout reductions in February.  The reductions came from Hormel Foods (HRL) and Realty Income (O).  The decrease from HRL came as a result of my trim around this time last year to round up funds to take advantage of plunging stock prices of companies I wanted to add to my Portfolio.  Meanwhile, the decrease from O was part of my overall REIT trim within my Portfolio.

I only recorded one new dividend payer this year compared to last February, and it was only because of a shift in the dividend payment.  Quest Diagnostics (DGX) delayed their January payment until February.

Due to shifting dividend payments, you’ll see I also had 2 stocks that no longer paid me a dividend this February.  These were FAST and SBUX, as noted earlier, which moved their dividend payments to early March.

Sadly, this month all my dividends did not automatically get reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  My NXST dividend was the first of what will be many that don’t get reinvested automatically.  This stems from an account switch I’m making within my brokerage.  Hopefully, this will be resolved sometime in March.  However, expect to see more of these reported by me next month.

Anyway, the resulting additional forward dividend income boost that could have come from reinvested dividends in February was muted.  The total came in at of $24.82.  Due to this, I missed the $25 target I have on a monthly basis.

With the reinvested dividends I did have though, I purchased 7.7 shares of stock in February.  This included over 1 full share of both ABBV and Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI).

 

Dividend Raises

After 3 consecutive months with exactly 5 dividend raises, this month I recorded 6!  Strangely, all of them came in the first half of the month.

Of the 6, I would say 1 was exemplary, 1 was very good, 2 were adequate and 2 were disappointing.

Let’s start with the best of the bunch… a massive 20% bump from one of my top dividend payers… T. Rowe Price Group (TROW).  This continues a strong dividend history for TROW, which has averaged better than a 12% raise over the past decade.  This raise alone boosted my forward dividend income by $84.76.  That’s a record for me.  Amazing!

The ‘very good’ raise came from Quest Diagnostics (DGX).  It was a double-digit one as well, and it came in at 10.71%.  This was nice tick up from last year’s 4.25% increase, and better than their 5-year average.

As for the two adequate raises, I put the 5.13% raise from Pepsico (PEP) and the 4.41% raise from Gilead Sciences (GILD) in that category.  At least they both managed to beat inflation.  The PEP raise was their lowest since 2013, and also below their 5-year average.  The GILD raise was their lowest since they initiated their dividend back in 2015.

Bringing up the rear in this dividend raise party were Cisco Systems (CSCO) and 3M Co. (MMM).  After a 2.86% raise last year, CSCO decided to step it down a bit with a 2.78% raise.  Not to be outdone, MMM saddened me more.  MMM posted a 2.08% raise last year, only to top it this year with a completely disappointing 0.68%.  Really!?  It’s still a raise I guess… but so disappointing.

 

 

These 6 dividend raises increased my forward dividend income by an ultra-pleasing $140.68.  As you can see, over half that amount was delivered by TROW.  However, the dollar increase from PEP was decent, too, but that was mainly due to my sizable PEP position.

I’d have to invest $5,789.30 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 2.43% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.  Love this stat!

Looking ahead to March, I anticipate the dividend party we’ve had over the last few months to wind down.  I expect a reduced number of raises for sure, but the potential for a good forward dividend income boost is still there.  It’s possible I have 5 dividend raise announcements in March.  These include ones from Gentex (GNTX), General Dynamics (GD) and Qualcomm (QCOM).   In addition, there should be those small quarterly ones from W.P. Carey (WPC) and Realty Income (O).  I hope QCOM can surprise me and deliver a double-digit raise.  With QCOM having a large dividend weighting for me already, that would result in a glorious forward dividend income boost.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

I made 9 transactions in February… split into two groups.

The first group contained 3 transactions.  It was made up of 2 trims and followed by adding shares in 1 existing holding.  The sale proceeds I obtained from the trims was not fully invested in the one stock, but most of it was, with the remainder used a couple of weeks later.  Here’s the post with those details…

Recent Transactions – SWKS, TCF, UNH

 

The second group contained the remaining 6 transactions.  I started things off by eliminating one of my Financial positions, then investing the proceeds and some cash into a pair of Utility stocks (which were both new to the Portfolio), and adding shares in 2 existing holdings (one stock I added to twice).

Adding a Utility stock was one of my goals for 2021, so it was nice to check that item off my list.  Again, here’s the post with the details…

Recent Transactions – TCF, NEE, PNW, AMGN, LMT

 

All together, for the 9 transactions, it was a net withdrawal of $40.61, yet I was able to boost my forward dividend income by $17.50 due to effectively replacing lower-yielding investments with higher-yielding ones.

Note that I also had a tiny sale transaction, but not of my own doing.  This occurred as part of my brokerage account transition I noted earlier.  My Caterpillar (CAT) reinvested dividend for February (0.158 shares) was sold.  This resulted in lost forward dividend income of $0.65, so I’m accounting for that here, too.

 

Summing this all up, my forward dividend climbed by $16.85.

With the removal of TCF Financial (TCF) from my Portfolio, but the introduction of NextEra Energy (NEE) and Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), my number of holdings rose to 52.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2021, 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 show 2020’s totals, too, so that we can compare as the year progresses.  I’m optimistic that I can do better in 2021 after some unexpected dividend setbacks in 2020 (fallout from the pandemic).

 

 

It was another good month of Additional Forward Dividend Income, despite falling short of last year’s February total.

Compared to 2020, Dividend Raises in 2021 have posted better totals to start the year, which seems reasonable given 2020’s more conservative raises (not to mention the dividend cuts & suspensions we saw last year).

Dividend Raises paced all categories for the 5th month in a row.  Gotta focus on those dividend raises!

Additional forward dividend income due to Reinvested Dividends could have been better in both months to start the year had all my dividends been reinvested as planned in February.  I’m not bitter.  🙂

Investment of Capital has been slow to start 2021, thus I’m trailing last year’s totals.  However, that just means my numbers for this category might be back-loaded in 2021, so stay tuned.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.  I was rather close to losing my streak of consecutive months with YoY growth this February.  Whew!

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.  Not a bad start, but I’d like to pick up the pace.  Quarter-ending months are always a big help in that regard, so bring on March!

 

 

Summary

I registered another solid month of dividend income, despite poor YoY growth.

In February, I raked in almost $795 in dividends from 14 dividend payers.  However, a pair of dividend payments normally delivered in February, moved to March instead, and crippled this month’s YoY dividend growth to barely 1%.

Forward dividend income due to reinvested dividends didn’t quite reach the $25 level, but it was close.

The number of announced dividend raises for my Portfolio, rose to 6 in February.  Raises ranged from a measly 0.68% to a stellar 20%.  Two of the raises were double-digit increases.  Forward dividend income was boosted by over $140, mostly thanks to TROW.  No doubt about it… it was another terrific month for raises.

I made 9 total transactions during the month.  These resulted in a net withdrawal over $40.  However, I still was able to record a dividend income bump of close to $17.  After the transactions, TCF is no longer in my Portfolio, while I welcome new holdings NEE and PNW.

Adding up the February contributions from all categories, I saw over $182 in additional forward dividend income.  It was another strong tally to start the year.

 

Have you had any shifting dividend payments in 2021 mess with your YoY income comparisons?  How’s your start to 2021 dividends looking in comparison to 2020?  Please share in the Comments!

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