I’m feeling really good about the progress in my Portfolio in 2021.  I’ve already reached a few of the annual goals I laid out for the Portfolio, including forward dividend income.  In addition, I expect to reach my 2021 dividend income goal next month.

What I wanted to focus on here though are a couple of unofficial 2021 goals that I put out as targets a few months into the year.  Those would be obtaining $1K in forward dividend income from dividend raises alone, and adding a total $2K in forward dividend income from all sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, new investment).

I can happily report that in November I reached one of those two unofficial goals, and the other is sure to be achieved in December.  More on this coming up.

So, the celebration has already begun.  To be able to report on such achievements in November is tremendous.  It leaves me a whole extra month to pad my numbers… to set the bar higher before heading into 2022.

Still, I can’t exclusively look forward just yet… I’ve got the Monthly Dividend Income report for November to cover… here’s a preview.

Dividend income reached a four-digit level in November.  I’m hoping this is the beginning of a long and glorious streak of four-digit months moving forward.  I just need to avoid any near-term dividend cuts, any shifting dividend payments, and any stock sales that significantly affect my dividends.

YoY growth this month was north of my 15% target.  But how high did it get?  Stick around to find out.

Dividend raises were plentiful in November… doubling the total number I had last month and matching the largest amount I’ve ever had in a single month.  Any guesses on how many raises that might be?

I didn’t execute a bunch of Portfolio transactions in November, but I did manage a handful.  I bought shares of a company for the first time in nearly 6 years, I trimmed shares of my largest holding, and I brought another stock into my Portfolio.  It was a net investment into my Portfolio and it of course added to my forward dividend income… but by how much?

The best Portfolio news for November was all the forward dividend income that came from my dividend raises.  The income increase was well into the triple-digits and it put me over the $1K mark for 2021.  Of course, I had forward dividend income additions thanks to reinvested dividends and new capital investment as well.  I’ll cover those numbers, too, very soon.

Near the end of the post, I’ll provide my updated monthly and annual progress charts.  One nice nugget… in November, 2021 dividend income surpassed my annual total from all of 2020!

Enough of the preview… let’s get to the details… starting with November’s dividend income.

 

Dividend Income

 

In November, I raked in a total of $1,014.59 in dividends.  While I came up just short of $1K last month, this month I came out on the right side of $1K.

YoY growth was solid, as well.  Growth was recorded at 18.36% when comparing this November’s dividend total to the $857.20 from November, 2020.  This bested my monthly 15% target and it was my 3rd best monthly YoY growth number in 2021.

A total of 17 companies paid me a dividend in November.  There were two $100+ dividend payers this month, too.  All the dividend payments were upwards of $15.90, and only three were shy of $30.  Thus, there were plenty of good dividend contributions in November.

AbbVie (ABBV) led my dividend payers with a monster $168.86 dividend.  This thing is like a runaway train.  I just reinvest the dividends and wait for the dividend raises to come in, then watch it grow.  Amazing.  Procter & Gamble (PG) crossed the $100 level, too.

My smallest dividend payment, $15.90, came from newcomer National Retail Properties (NNN).  I hope to double the size of this position over the course of the next year, but we’ll see how it plays out.

The increased dividend amounts from Lowe’s Companies (LOW) and Realty Income (O) were helped by additional purchases over the past year.

Increased YoY amounts for the other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.  I recorded nearly $22 in YoY dividend gains from ABBV, nearly $16 from Nexstar Media Group (NXST), over $13 from PG, as well as over $11 from Fastenal (FAST).  I love seeing my dividend income grow so quickly.

Two stocks posted a payout reduction compared to last November.  Those stocks were Caterpillar (CAT) and Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI).  As usual, this was my own doing.  I trimmed CAT about 1 year ago due what I thought was overvaluation (but it’s since powered higher), while I trimmed OHI as part of my REIT reduction and to improve my dividend safety.

I had two new dividend payers arrive in my Portfolio this November.  Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) delivered a “healthy” dividend for a debut.  Meanwhile, the new dividend from NNN was a decent chunk as well, despite it being my smallest dividend of the month.

Happily, I didn’t have any dividend payers disappear this November compared to last year.  That’s one way to help make sure I post a YoY increase in my dividend income.

As usual, all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  The resulting additional forward dividend income boost from this was $29.31.  I would have liked to crack the $30 mark, but I certainly can’t complain by falling just short.

With all the reinvested dividends from November, I purchased over 10 new shares of stock.  This included over 1 share each of ABBV, FAST & OHI.

 

Dividend Raises

It turned out to be a wonderful month for dividend raises.  Not only did I get more raises than I was expecting, but the combined raises were impressive enough to result in my 2nd best month of the year with regard to forward dividend income boost from raises.

As the start of November rolled around, I had expectations for 5 dividend raises.  In the end, it was 8 dividend raises in total.  I was surprised by Main Street Capital (MAIN), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW) and Realty Income (O).

MAIN was the first of my raises in November.  It was a surprise since MAIN raised their dividend 3 months ago, in August.  Typically, MAIN raises just once per year.  The raise was a half a penny increase in the monthly dividend.  This was the same raise as in August, with the raise percentage this time around coming in at 2.38%.  MAIN also announced a $0.10/share special dividend that will be paid in December.

A couple of days later, PNW announced a dividend raise of 2.41%.  While this doesn’t come close to matching recent raise percentages from PNW, I was worried that there wouldn’t be any raise at all given the regulatory climate PNW is operating in these days.

The next raise was a double-digit one from Automatic Data Processing (ADP).  ADP’s raise of 11.83% was more than 5 times better than the 2.2% raise from 2020.

As we reached mid-month I got my best raise of November.  Alfac (AFL) announced a blowout raise of 21.21%, besting even last November’s 17.86% raise.  Given that AFL is one of my largest dividend payers, the raise resulted in a huge $88.90 bump to my forward dividend income, over half my total for the month.  Tremendous!

The raise from O was a surprise as well.  O typically announces its largest raise of the year in January, which it didn’t do in 2021.  I figured O would just skip this largest raise at this point and wait until this coming January, but that was not the case.  O announced a 4.24% increase to its dividend in November, which when combined with the smaller quarterly raises during the course of 2021 will bring its raise percentage for all of 2021 over 5%.

The raises didn’t stop with O.  I received another double-digit raise from Nike (NKE).  NKE has consistently boosted its dividend over the past decade at over a 10% clip and it continued that trend.  This year the raise was 10.91%.

Rounding out the busy month were a pair of very similar, solid raises from Hormel Foods (HRL) and Merck & Co. (MRK).  The HRL raise came in at 6.12%, exceeding the 5.38% provided in 2020.  As for MRK, the company raised its dividend by 6.15%, a notch below the 6.56% raise from last year.

Looking at the entire group, the AFL raise carried the month, but ADP and NKE brought nice double-digits raises as well.  The raises from HRL and MRK were average ones, but they kept my income growing.  My three smallest raises came from the stocks that I was surprised to hear announce a raise at all.  O provided a good bump compared to its recent history, while the raise from MAIN was its 2nd of the year and brought its total dividend raise for 2021 to a welcomed 4.88% for the year.  While the raise from PNW was lacking compared to recent years, I was happy to see any raise at all.

 

 

Adding up all the dividend raises from November, my forward dividend income increased by $172.13.  Not only did I blow past the $100 threshold I was hoping to, it was my 2nd best total of 2021 with respect to additional forward dividend income from dividend raises.  It was only exceeded by the total from January.

The best part though was that the total was large enough to put my Portfolio over the $1K mark for dividend raises in 2021.  I thought I might need both Nov. & Dec. to eclipse $1K, but November came in so hot and heavy that I got it done in November alone.

I’d have to invest $7,387.55 at my Portfolio’s current average yield of 2.33% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.  I love me some dividend raises!

Looking ahead, I’m expecting at least 5 more dividend raises in December.  Not only did I already hear from Eastman Chemical (EMN) and Amgen (AMGN) – which I’ll save until next month – but I expect to hear from Broadcom (AVGO) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), too.  Lastly, I expect the small quarterly raise from W.P. Carey (WPC), as well.  I’m not sure if O will provide its usual small quarterly raise in December given that it delivered its big raise in November, but I can hope.  Speaking of hope, I guess it’s possible that CVS Health (CVS) graces us with its first raise after the Aetna acquisition, but I suspect one more year of holding the dividend steady is the more likely outcome.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

My cash continued to be invested into the market in November.

I invested twice in Visa (V), even though I hadn’t added any shares since establishing a position back in early 2016.

I continued to build my Amgen (AMGN) position as well with the share price continuing to drop.

Shares of Qualcomm (QCOM) surged so much during November that I trimmed my position and re-deployed the proceeds (and some cash) into a new Technology name in Amdocs Ltd. (DOX).

All totaled, I made four purchases and one sale.  The details for all 5 of these transactions can be found in the following pair of posts…

 

Recent Buys – V & AMGN

Recent Transactions – V, QCOM, DOX

 

The transactions resulted in a net investment of $2,464.22.  This was about twice as much as I invested last month.  My forward dividend income increased by $57.52.  This income boost was a bit muted as a result of the low yield offered by V.

With the addition of DOX to my Portfolio, the number of stocks in my Portfolio rose to 55.

 

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 put up for 2021 have been terrific so far… already over $1K from Dividend Raises, with $2K overall being all but a foregone conclusion!

 

 

November was awesome with regard to additional forward dividend income.  First, it was my 11th straight month of $100+, as I added $258.96.  Second, I surpassed $1K from dividend raises (first time ever!) by getting $172.13 in that category alone.

While not blowout amounts, Investment of Capital delivered a solid $57.52 while Reinvested Dividends contributed a tidy $29.31.

Now I’m on the precipice of $2K total for the year when accounting for all three sources.  Thus, next month is shaping up to be exciting as well.

After accounting for November’s contributions, for the year Dividend Raises has delivered more than Investment of Capital and Reinvested Dividends combined.  Not only that, but additional forward dividend income due to Dividend Raises is already more than twice the amount I had in that category in 2020.  What a year 2021 has turned out to be.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.  One more month to go to achieve year-over-year growth every month of the year for a 6th year in a row!

 

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.  The total from 2020 has been surpassed and now I’m just looking to pad my totals for 2021.  I suspect I’ll finish around $13,450.

 

 

Summary

Some of my annual goals were already achieved in November.  Love it!  Next month will be my time to raise the bar for 2022.

In November, I collected just over $1K in dividends.  I’m hopeful that I’ll never see a sub-$1K dividend month again.  In addition, my YoY growth was north of 18%!  That’s a good month for me, no doubt.

All dividends were once again reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  This led to more than $29 of additional forward dividend income due to reinvested dividends.

I had 8 Portfolio stocks announce dividend raises in November, led by a massive 21%+ raise from AFL which accounted for over half of my additional forward dividend income from dividend raises.  All totaled, the 8 raises added over $172 to my forward dividend income.

Portfolio transactions were about average in November (four purchases & one trim).  My total cash investment was just over $2,464.  This delivered close to a $58 increase to my forward dividend income.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, I totaled almost $259 in additional forward dividend income for my Portfolio.  My Portfolio’s current annual forward dividend income total stands at $14,026.79.

 

Dividend raises continue to be strong in 2021.  Have you seen record additional forward dividend income as a result?  Please share in the Comments!

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