Welcome to another monthly dividend income report for my Portfolio.  This month I have a nugget of exciting news to share.

I kicked off the 2nd half of 2021 with a bang.  A $3/share special dividend from T. Rowe Price (TROW) took a good month and turned it into an extraordinary one.

With the bonus dividend payment from TROW, my 3-digit dividend income month became a 4-digit one.  It also improved my YoY growth number for July by nearly 47 percentage points.

Whoa!  Thank you, TROW… Hey, I snuck a little rhyme in there.  🙂

Of course there were other happenings in my Portfolio during the month and I’ll cover those, too.

I was destined for a good month of July even without the TROW boost.  Dividend income was approaching $900, and YoY dividend growth was slated to surpass the 15% threshold target I have.

The quantity of dividend raises came in light, as expected, but one of the raises topped double-digits, so we’ll find out which company delivered that.

Late in the month, I was able to make a pair of purchases to keep the Portfolio growing.  Both adds were to existing holdings.  Stay tuned to see where the new capital investment was deployed.

Meanwhile, my additional forward dividend income totals in July were amazingly similar to those from June.  This means that once again, I got nearly equal contributions from all three categories: reinvested dividends, dividend raises and new capital investment.  The best part about that… it allowed me to post another triple-digit month with respect to additional forward dividend income, keeping my streak intact for 2021.

Let’s get to all the details already.  As usual, we’ll start with this month’s dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

You’ll see that TROW special dividend really stands out relative to my normal dividend payments.  It was more than 3 times as big as what would have been my top dividend payment.  Impressive!

Last month I had 7 dividend payments come in at $100+.  There certainly weren’t as many of those this time around, but collectively my dividend payers produced a nice amount.

All totaled, in July I collected an whopping $1,247.20 in dividends.  This is the first time I’ve eclipsed $1K in a non-quarter-ending month… the start of a regular occurrence I’m hoping.

YoY growth came in at an amazing 64.86% when comparing this July’s dividend total to the $756.50 from July 2020..  Taking out the TROW special dividend, YoY growth would have been 17.90%.  That by itself would have been my best YoY growth number for any month in 2021.

A total of 19 companies paid me a dividend this July.  Well over half of that group fell in the range of $34-$48, so there were plenty of solid contributions.

Outside of the monster TROW special dividend, I had one triple-digit dividend payment.  It was a $103.78 dividend from Altria Group (MO).  On the low, end I had Realty Income (O) deliver $18.80 in July.

The increased dividend amounts from Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Realty Income (O) were helped by additional purchases over the past year.

Increased YoY amounts for most of the other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.  I recorded over $10 in YoY dividend gains from MO, primarily due to its massive yield.  Other nice organic boosts included adding over $6 from RPM International (RPM) and over $5 from Illinois Tool Works (ITW).

Unfortunately, I had 3 stocks that posted payout reductions when comparing this July to last July.  The stocks included W.P. Carey (WPC), Gentex (GNTX) and Air Lease (AL).  In each case, the reduction was a result of my own actions (as opposed to any sort of dividend cut), as I trimmed each of these positions over the course of the past year for various reasons.

New dividend payers for me in July were Merck & Co. (MRK) and OGE Energy (OGE).  MRK had a nice debut, bringing me $65.39 in dividends, while OGE delivered a decent chunk as well at $40.41.  I look forward to these two new payers bringing dividends on a regular basis.

You’ll see I had a $0 amount from The Walt Disney Co. (DIS).  DIS continued with the suspension of its dividend until the majority of its businesses have recovered from the hit they took with the arrival of the pandemic.

Only a single dividend payer disappeared this July compared to last year.  That company was Sysco (SYY), which I sold in late April after it had a significant run-up in price.  It was a smaller position that I wasn’t planning to grow based on what appeared to be overvaluation at the time.

As usual, all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  The resulting additional forward dividend income boost from this activity came in at $36.48.  This was better than the monthly $25 target I have, even if I subtract the $7.50 bump that came from reinvesting that TROW special dividend.

With all the reinvested dividends from July, I purchased nearly 15 new shares of stock.  This included over 2 shares of MO, and better than 1 share each of TROW, RPM, GNTX & OGE.

 

Dividend Raises

By the time the end of July rolled around, I received one of the two dividend raises I thought I might get, and one slightly unexpected one.

I was pretty certain an announcement would come from Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), and it did.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a big enough raise to get excited about.  WBA raised their dividend 2.14%, which was a tick down from the 2.19% increase from last year.  Two consecutive less-than-inspiring raises is to no way to endear yourself to me, WBA.  I’ll cut WBA some slack due to the impressive capital appreciation I’ve seen with the stock.  However, let’s hope for a reversal of the trend by next year.

I never saw an official 11.11% raise announcement from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) regarding their dividend, so I’ll continue to look for that in August or September.

The slightly unexpected raise I referred to earlier was delivered by Skyworks Solutions (SWKS).  Last year, the raise announcement from SWKS arrived in July, but historically it had come in August.  This year, I thought the announcement might revert back to being in August.  However, with the last two annual announcements now coming in July, I’ll probably have to change my expectation month.

In any case, SWKS announced a wonderful 12.0% dividend raise (I love seeing more than 10%!).  This is a minor deceleration of the recent raise percentages from SWKS, but more than enough to keep me quite happy.

 

 

July’s dividend raises increased my forward dividend income by $32.37.  This was a slight increase over June’s total.

I’d have to invest $1,438.67 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 2.25% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead, I’d say dividend raises in August for my Portfolio should be fairly tame as well.  I expect to hear from ITW and MO.  Actually, ITW raised their dividend just yesterday, but I’ll save that for next month.  I’m hoping MO can do better than the 2.38% raise from last year.  As already noted, I’m still waiting to hear something official from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) regarding an 11.11% raise so that I can lock that in.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

I was able to make a couple of small additions to my Portfolio in July.  I added to two of my existing Portfolio positions.

First I added to Lockheed Martin (LMT).  It was only a single share I bought, but given that I didn’t have too many shares to being with, it was a decent bump.

I made a slightly more substantial investment into MRK, buying 10x the number of shares for roughly 2x the total investment.

All the details for these two transactions can be found in the following posts…

 

Recent Buy – LMT

Recent Buy – MRK

 

The two purchases resulted in a net investment of $1,137.00, and an increase of $36.40 to my forward dividend income.

Since both stocks were already a part of my Portfolio, the number of stocks in my Portfolio remained at 54.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2021, I’ve continued 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.  The totals being put up for 2021 continue to look good.  Avoiding the negative numbers I encountered in 2020 certainly helps!

 

 

My monthly totals for July came in quite similar to those from June.  All 3 categories (Reinvested Dividends, Dividend Raises & Investment of Capital) were in the $31-$37 range.  This led to another $100+ of additional forward dividend income – $105.25 to be exact.  That’s 7 months and counting of additional triple-digit income!  If I can keep this up for another couple of months, then the expected dividend raises in Q4 should be enough to carry that streak through the end of the year.  How sweet would that be?  Pretty sweet I’d imagine.

For the 2nd month in a row, Reinvested Dividends brought home its biggest total of the year ($36.48), as well as the largest total from the three categories.  That wouldn’t have been the case without that TROW special dividend.

Dividend Raises have already reached $600 for the year.  My stretch goal of $1K in 2021 is still in my sights.

Once I total all 3 categories, I’d love to reach $2K in additional forward dividend income for the entire year.  This would be quite the achievement if I can make it.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.  Check out that massive uptick this month thanks to the TROW special dividend.

 

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.  I’m currently projecting to reach at least $13,200 in dividends for 2021.  We’ll see how it shakes out in about 5 months!

 

 

Summary

Another month, another outstanding dividend total.  This month, I got help from a special dividend from TROW.

It would have been $891.89 from my 18 regular dividend payers, but TROW became the 19th payer in July and boosted that total to an amazing $1,247.20!

The regular dividend payers were set to deliver YoY growth of 17.90% (which would have been my best number for 2021), but TROW jacked that number to 64.86%.  Hello!

As usual, my dividends were reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  This provided more than a $36 boost to my additional forward dividend income.

I only received a pair of dividend raises in July, but those two provided an additional dividend income boost of $32, which was slightly more than four stocks managed to provide last month.

A couple of Portfolio transactions took place late in July.  Both were purchases, which kept my Portfolio growing.  I bought more shares in two existing holdings – LMT and MRK.  These resulted in an investment of $1,137 providing over $36 of additional forward dividend income.

Adding up the contributions from all categories in July, I totaled over $105 in additional forward dividend income for my Portfolio.  My attempt to add at least $100 of forward dividend income to my Portfolio each month this year is going well, as the streak has reached 7 months.  My Portfolio’s current annual forward dividend income total stands at $13,172.21.

 

Did the TROW special dividend (or perhaps one from another stock) lead to impressive portfolio results for you in July?  Please share in the Comments!

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