Just like that, one quarter of 2021 is complete.  Thankfully, I closed out the quarter on a high note.

My Portfolio notched some nice price gains during March, but in this post we are focused on dividends, so let’s examine that.

From a dividend perspective, March delivered some good results, too.  How good?  It was a record month!  OK, let’s call it excellent instead, as a record month can’t be just ‘good’, right?

This month’s dividend totals were helped by a couple of normal February payments that slid into March.  Even without those additional payments though, I would have still posted a record month, just not to the same degree.

YoY growth looked good thanks to those two moved dividend payments as well.

As I noted last month, an account switch that I initiated at my brokerage continued to wreak havoc on my reinvested dividends.  Luckily that appears to be behind me now, however this wasn’t rectified until mid-March.  As a result, the number of new shares and the additional forward dividend income due to reinvested dividends looks weak this month.

Dividend raises were solid in March, but raises are cooling off for me relative to the first two months of the year.  Also, I did have one company choose to forego a raise.  More on that coming up.

I was not as active with my trades this month.  Perhaps that was due to the rising stock prices, or maybe the fact that my cash stockpile is looking pretty small these days.  However, a net investment did occur so I’ll get you up-to-speed on that.

Once again, it was another month of positive numbers when it came to additional forward dividend income from the trifecta of categories: reinvested dividends, dividend raises and new capital investment.  Due to this, my forward dividend income continues to grow, and that puts a smile on my face.

Let’s get to the specifics regarding my dividend income in March…

 

Dividend Income

 

As noted earlier, it was a record dividend total in March.  How high did the total climb?… it reached $1,535.59.  This was over $200 higher than my previous record of $1,333.35 set last December.  My March total was boosted by dividends from Fastenal (FAST) and Starbucks (SBUX) that slipped out of February and into March.

Monthly YoY growth came in at 15.67% when comparing this March’s dividend total to the $1,327.51 from March 2020.  I was able to achieve my monthly target goal of 15% YoY growth as a result of the two extra dividend payments.  Had I not received those, YoY growth would have been 5.04%, which is probably a better indicator of what I achieved.

A total of 23 companies paid me a dividend in March.  Even better, six of those companies managed to deliver triple-digit dividend amounts to me… another record.

Qualcomm (QCOM) was my top dividend payer in March, sending me a dividend payment of $136.15.  Not too far behind was T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), which provided $127.13.  The dividend from TROW was significantly higher this quarter after TROW’s huge 20% dividend raise announced in February.

My dividends from Aflac (AFL) and BlackRock (BLK) crossed the $100 mark in March, too, due to recent dividend raises as well.

Microsoft (MSFT) delivered my smallest dividend payment of the month at $6.20.  I’d like to boost this dividend by increasing the size of my MSFT position, but the stock never looks like it’s trading at a reasonable price.

The increased dividend amounts from AFL, 3M Co. (MMM) and UnitedHealth Group (UNH) 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 TROW was over $24, and all organic (combination of dividend raises and dividend reinvestment).  Other big organic boosts came from Broadcom (AVGO) which added over $15, from BLK which added over $14, and from Pepsico (PEP) which added over $10.

I had 3 dividend payout reductions in March.  The reductions came from Gilead Sciences (GILD), TCF Financial (TCF) and Realty Income (O).  The decrease from GILD was due to last year’s trim, in order to round up funds and purchase new companies for my Portfolio during the market selloff.  The TCF decrease was the result of a trim earlier this year.  Lastly, the decrease from O was part of my overall REIT trim done last year.

Amazingly, I recorded six new dividend payers this year compared to last March.  Two of those came from the dividend payment shifts of FAST and SBUX that I noted earlier.  The other four were due to new Portfolio positions I established over the course of the past year.  The largest of these new position payments was from Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), but Lockheed Martin (LMT), Amgen (AMGN) and MSFT contributed, too.

I also had a whopping five companies no longer paying me a dividend this March.  The largest of those lost dividends was the one from Exxon Mobil (XOM).  It was tough recouping the lost dividend income from XOM, but I was able to manage it over the course of the year.

Once again in March, all my dividends did not automatically get reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  I had ten companies that paid me a dividend that didn’t get reinvested.   Nine of those were due to the account switch I mentioned previously.  The last non-reinvested dividend was from TCF, which was the result of me closing out my position.  Things should be back to normal (i.e. all dividends reinvested) by next month.

For those dividends that did manage to get reinvested, the resulting additional forward dividend income boost came in at $27.13.  I was still able to reach my $25 target, despite the abundance of non-reinvested dividends.

With the reinvested dividends I did have in March, I purchased over 6.8 shares of stock.  This included over 1 full share of both QCOM and GILD.

 

Dividend Raises

The dividend raises continued in March.  I had raise announcements from 4 of my Portfolio companies.  However, a fifth didn’t arrive as expected.

Let’s start with what was missing… a raise announcement from Gentex (GNTX).  Early in March, GNTX made their dividend announcement, but it didn’t include the expected raise.  They chose for forego any dividend raise this time around.  Will GNTX wait a year before considering a raise, or might the company find a way to raise later in 2021 as we hopefully put the pandemic behind us?

As for the dividend raises that did occur in March, for the 2nd month in a row, the raises all arrived in the 1st half of the month.  Technically, one raise was a day past the half way point, but who’s counting?

My first raise of the month was my best one.  It was an 8.18% increase from General Dynamics (GD).  This was a tick up from last year’s 7.84% raise, so I like the direction there.  However, it’s a percent or two below the dividend growth rates from GD over the 3-year and 5-year periods.

Next up was a dividend raise from QCOM, which came in at 4.62%.  QCOM is my second biggest dividend payer, so this underwhelming boost still provided a decent bump to my forward dividend income.  While this year’s raise came in a bit short of last year’s 4.84% bump, it is about on par with QCOM’s 3-year dividend growth.

My last two raises were the standard quarterly raises from a couple of my REITs, Realty Income (O) and W.P. Carey (WPC).  O managed a 0.21% raise, while W.P. Carey delivered a 0.19% raise.  Even combining these two, their impact to my forward dividend income was less than 1 dollar.

 

 

These 4 dividend raises increased my forward dividend income by a decent $44.90.  Of course, GD and QCOM accounted for nearly that entire amount.

I’d have to invest $1,943.72 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 2.31% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to April, I only anticipate a pair of dividend raises.  Those should come from a pair of my legacy stocks in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Procter & Gamble (PG).  Since both are top 15 positions in my Portfolio, the boost they provide to my forward dividend income should be decent, and I expect the amount to rival this month’s total haul.  I estimate the raises from each company to be in the 6%-7% range.  We’ll see how that shakes out.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

While I had minimal transactions in March, I did end up with a net investment.  I made 1 sale and 2 purchases (of the same stock no less)

The initial activity was a cash investment in Merck & Co (MRK).  That was followed by a trim of GNTX, then reinvesting those sales proceeds into MRK, continuing to build that position.

All the details for these transactions can be found in this single post…

 

Recent Transactions – MRK & GNTX

 

After accounting for all the transactions, it was a net investment of $767.46, and a boost to my forward dividend income of $67.00.  The sizeable income increase relative to the cash invested was the result of MRK having a yield that’s more than double that of GNTX.

 

Since my sale was just a trim, and my buys were of an existing Portfolio stock, my number of Portfolio holdings remained at 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.

 

 

While the March totals were a bit subdued relative to January & February, they were still solidly positive.  Thus, I’m well on my way to surpassing last year’s totals.  You can see that I’m already half way to reaching that $1,230 number from 2020.  However, I doubt I can overtake $1,230 by the midway point of this year.  I’ll probably need a few extra months beyond that.

March was the first time in 6 months that Dividend Raises was not the leading category with regard to boosting my forward dividend income.  This month, Investment of Capital led the way.

Still, Dividend Raises in March did surpass the total from a year ago (barely).  That’s now each month this year that Dividend Raises have come in higher compared to last year.  That’s a trend I like to see.

Reinvested Dividends took a hit this month thanks to about half of my dividends not getting reinvested during the account switch.  As I said though, that shouldn’t be an issue moving forward.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.  My record dividend month in March forced me to adjust the Y-axis scaling from $1,400 to $1,600.  Sweet!

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.  Totals are looking good at the quarter pole, but I’ll still be looking to pick up the dividend pace in the dog days of summer that lie ahead.

 

 

Summary

My dividend total ascended to new heights in March.  Record totals are bound to happen if you stick with the program.  So, keep up your efforts!

March saw me collect over $1,535 in dividends from 23 dividend payers.  These numbers were boosted by a couple of dividend payments that slipped from February into March.  However, since last month’s totals had to suffer a bit, it’s only fair that March got to benefit some.

Dividend growth approached 16%, but would have been a more modest 5% without those two dividend payments from February.

My forward dividend income due to reinvested dividends was a bit low, at roughly $27, as a result of a good chunk of dividends that didn’t get reinvested.  March happened to bear the brunt of an account switch glitch that resulted in this anomaly.  Expect better numbers starting next month.

I recorded 4 announced dividend raises for my Portfolio in March, but none reached double-digits.  Decent raises from GD and QCOM carried the month, while token raises from O and WPC barely moved the needle.  Still, those token raises were better than the frozen dividend that GNTX delivered.  March raises resulted in almost $45 of additional forward dividend income.

I only had 3 transactions during March, which was a step down in activity compared to the past two months.  However, these transactions resulted in a net investment over $767 and a forward dividend income increase of $67.

Adding up the contributions from all categories in March, over $139 in additional forward dividend income came into my Portfolio.  March was another solid month on the dividend front.

 

How was your first quarter-ending month of 2021?  Did you establish a new record total like I did?  If so, tell me all about it in the Comments!

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