December is always a busy month, so I haven’t posted in a while. However, I’m going to sneak in a quick post here before things get really busy in this week leading up to Christmas.
Since I’m not expecting any further dividend raises in my Portfolio for 2021, I thought I’d summarize the raises I did receive during the year.
Should I get an unexpected raise in the remaining days of 2021, I’ll come back and update the table.
We’ll see which companies offered a larger raise in 2021 than in 2020. I’ll also provide my thoughts on some of the raise percentages.
Here we go…
In the rightmost column, if you see a ‘+’ that means that this year’s dividend raise is larger than the one I received from the stock last year. A ‘*’ means that the stock is new to my Portfolio in 2021, and I don’t have a “received raise percentage” from 2020 to compare to. I right-justified the ‘*’ to make it easier to see relative to the ‘+’.
Dividend raises as a whole were much better in 2021 compared to 2020.
I had 5 stocks provide raises north of 20%, compared to only 2 from last year. Lowe’s Companies (LOW) provided my largest raise of 2021 at 33.33% (my largest raise from 2020 was 24.44%). One interesting note here was that the 21.21% raise from Aflac (AFL) was actually less than the raise from last year. Back-to-back raises above 20% is impressive. This feat was accomplished by Nexstar Media Group (NXST) as well.
I only had 2 stocks in the 15% to 19.99% range this year, compared to 3 in 2020. However, both Visa (V) and UnitedHealth Group (UNH) were participants in this group last year, too. It was Air Products & Chemicals (APD) that faded a bit.
As for the 10% to 14.99% range, an astounding 16 stocks populated this range. This is double the amount from last year. I was happy to see significant percentage increases from the following stocks which allowed them to grace the double-digit raise club in 2021: Automatic Data Processing (ADP), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Quest Diagnostics (DGX), Eastman Chemical (EMN), Procter & Gamble (PG) and CVS Health (CVS).
All totaled, I notched 23 double-digit raises in 2021. Talk about a terrific way to boost the forward dividend income!
In the range of 7.00% to 9.99% (which I consider ‘good’), I had 7 stocks. This is the same number as last year. Starbucks (SBUX), Comcast (CMCSA) and General Dynamics (GD) were repeat participants in this range.
Next is my ‘average’ range of 4.00% to 6.99%. 10 stocks fell into this range in 2021 compared to 12 from 2020. Qualcomm (QCOM) has been stuck in this range (less than 5%, actually) for two consecutive years. I would like to see dividend growth from QCOM pick up and match its stock price performance. Three of my legacy stocks sit in this range as well: RPM International (RPM), Pepsico (PEP) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). If these stocks can manage to bump their dividend raise percentages above a 7% level next year I’d be a happy man. I liked the roughly 5% raise percentages from Realty Income (O) and Main Street Capital (MAIN). This was better than I was expecting during 2021. Both of these stocks achieved these levels with raises late in the year.
In the disappointing range of 0%+ to 3.99% were 7 stocks… one less than last year. Sticking out like a sore thumb to me are Cisco Systems (CSCO), VF Corp (VFC) and 3M Co. (MMM). I expect more dividend growth from these stocks. This is now back-to-back years in this low range. Let’s see if one or more of these stocks can break out of this range in 2022.
As for companies with a frozen dividend… I only have two of them in 2021 (yippee), compared to 9 from the previous year (darn that pandemic). The dividend freeze from Gentex (GNTX) was surprising to me, while the one from Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI) was not.
My only suspended dividend belongs to The Walt Disney Co. (DIS)… same as last year. I didn’t expect a dividend raise from DIS in 2021 and I’m not sure I expect one in 2022 either. Maybe I’ll get a dividend raise surprise from DIS in 2022… kind of like I did with the CVS Health (CVS) raise this year.
A few other notes…
I list 50 companies in the table above, however, there are currently 55 stocks in my Portfolio. The 5 stocks not shown are ones that I established a position in during 2021, and which raised their dividend in 2021 prior to my purchase. Here are those companies and the dividend raise they offered in 2021, even though I didn’t get to benefit from it.
- NextEra Energy (NEE) – 10.00%
- Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) – 9.92%
- Omnicom Group (OMC) – 7.69%
- Medical Properties Trust (MPW) – 3.70%
- National Retail Properties (NNN) – 1.92%
Another item of note… if I eliminated a stock from my Portfolio during 2021, it’s not included in the table above, regardless of whether the company provided a dividend raise or not prior to exiting my Portfolio. Here are the 5 stocks that exited my Portfolio this year, in the order in which they departed.
- TCF Financial (TCF)
- Sysco (SYY)
- Organon & Co. (OGN)
- Iron Mountain (IRM)
- Air Lease (AL)
I guess that’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed seeing the ‘dividend raises’ overview for my Portfolio. How does this compare to what transpired in your portfolio in 2021?
I love this post! Thanks for sharing!
Even though it is part of the dividend trifecta, I never really know (unless I read it someone’s blog) when my stocks raise their dividend.
I share no less then 17 (!) raises with you!
Great to hear you liked the post. I did a similar thing at the end of 2020, but only shared it on Twitter. This time around I decided to make a post of it for the blog. I plan to do it again each year moving forward.
We have quite a few stocks in common sharing 17 raises. Perhaps with next year’s summary you find out about another dividend raise you might have missed during the year.
Take care, Mr. Robot.
Looks like a solid year of dividend growth for you for 2021. I for one was very glad to see 2021’s numbers versus 2020’s.
Hey, JC. In retrospect, 2020 dividend growth didn’t turn out too badly for my Portfolio. I had very few dividend cuts and suspensions. There were several dividend freezes though. However, the vast majority continued to raise their dividend, even if the raises were a bit less than normal. That’s a good indication of the dividend safety of my Portfolio holdings.
As for 2021, just the 2 dividend freezes and the continued DIS suspension. Otherwise, like you, I liked what I saw for dividend growth. I look forward to sharing my weighted dividend growth for my Portfolio once I calculate it in the coming weeks.