Since I’m not expecting any further dividend raises in my Portfolio for 2022, it’s time to summarize the raises I did receive during the year.

We’ll see which Portfolio companies offered a larger raise in 2022 than in 2021.  I’ll also provide my thoughts on some of the raise percentages.

Alright… let’s do this!

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 2022, and I don’t have a “received raise percentage” from 2021 to compare to.  I right-justified the ‘*’ to make it easier to see relative to the ‘+’.

 

 

Dividend raises slumped in 2022 compared to 2021.  The year started out strong enough but raise percentages started to fade around mid-year and continued the slump into year’s end.  Still, it was a good year.

On a bright note, I had 4 stocks provide raises of 20% or more.  This compared to 5 such raises last year.

For the 2nd straight year, Lowe’s Companies (LOW) provided my largest raise,  In 2022, this was a raise of 31.25%.  This was actually a smaller raise from LOW than in 2021 (33.33%).  Back-to-back raises from LOW above 30% is outstanding.

Not too far behind LOW was Nexstar Media Group (NXST) with a dividend raise of 28.57% in 2022.  This followed a 25% raise from NXST in 2021.  Back-to-back raises of 25% or more is tremendous as well.  Such high percentage boosts really juice up the forward dividend income quickly.

Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and Visa (V) joined my 20% raise club this year, with their raises of 20.19% and 20.00%, respectively.  This was an increase from their 11.83% and 17.19% raises in 2021.

There was only 1 stock in the 15% to 19.99% range this year, compared to 2 in 2021.  BlackRock (BLK) was the lone stock to settle in this range, at 18.16%.  This was an improvement from BLK’s 13.77% raise last year.

With regard to the 10% to 14.99% range (which I consider ‘great’), I had 10 stocks populate this area.  Unfortunately, this is a step down from the 16 such companies I had in this range in 2021.  One surprise stock that managed to work its way into this group was Qualcomm (QCOM).  QCOM had only managed sub-5% raises in each of the past two years, so I was happy to see the increase.

All totaled, I notched 15 double-digit raises in 2022.  Again, this was fewer double-digit dividend raises than in 2021, but still, more than 27% of my Portfolio stocks managed a double-digit raise.  I’ll take it!

In the range of 7.00% to 9.99% (which I consider ‘good’), I had 12 stocks – up from 7 in 2021.  Starbucks (SBUX), Caterpillar (CAT), Comcast (CMCSA), Illinois Tool Works (ITW) and Lockheed Martin (LMT) were repeat participants in this range.  This is actually 3 years in a row in this range for SBUX and CMCSA – I like the consistency.

In the range of 4.00% to 6.99% (which I consider ‘average’), I had 14 stocks – up from 10 in 2021.  All 5 of my legacy stocks sit in this range in 2022.  Pepsico (PEP) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) offered up raises of 6.98% and 6.60%, respectively, with Aflac (AFL), Procter & Gamble (PG) and RPM International (RPM) all delivering 5.00%.  Merck & Co. (MRK), Hormel Foods (HRL), Main Street Capital (MAIN) and Altria Group (MO) were repeat participants in this range for 2022.  However, I was a bit sad to see Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), McCormick (MKC) and AbbVie (ABBV) slip into this range after better raises last year.

In the range of 0%+ to 3.99% (which I consider ‘disappointing’) were 11 stocks – up from 7 in 2021.  I had six stocks remain in this range compared to 2021.  These stocks included Cisco Systems (CSCO), VF Corp (VFC), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), OGE Energy (OGE) and 3M Co. (MMM).  I want to see better dividend growth from these stocks.  If this doesn’t happen, then I’d expect these stocks to be purged from my Portfolio and replacements to be found.  Two new stocks entering this range were Eastman Chemical (EMN) and Realty Income (O).  EMN took a pretty good tumble from a double-digit raise in 2021.  Meanwhile, O failed to provide its 5th and biggest raise in a typical year and came up short of an overall 1% increase despite 4 raises in 2022.

As for companies with a frozen dividend…  I once again have a pair of them – but different stocks this year.  The dividend freeze from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) was strongly influenced by the Federal Reserve requirements from this past summer.  I will expect a raise from JPM in 2023.  The freeze from Omnicom (OMC) is not necessarily an issue for me, as OMC has an inconsistent dividend raise schedule (and I knew this when I established the position).  Still with OMC not raising in 2022, I’d expect something in 2023, or I’d reconsider whether I want to continue with the uncertainty.

My only suspended dividend continued to be from The Walt Disney Co. (DIS).  I wasn’t expecting a raise from DIS in 2022 given its suspended dividend, and at this point (given the rough year DIS has had) I’m not expecting a raise in 2023 either.  I’d be happy enough if DIS just reinstated the suspended dividend at the old rate.

 

A few other notes…

I list 55 companies in the table above, however, there are currently 59 stocks in my Portfolio.  The 4 stocks not shown are ones that I established a position in during 2022, and which raised their dividend in 2022 prior to my purchase.  Here are those companies and the dividend raise they offered in 2022, even though I didn’t get to benefit from it.

• Accenture (ACN) – 15.46%
• Best Buy (BBY) – 25.71%
• FedEx (FDX) – 53.33%
• Medtronic (MDT) – 7.94%

 

Another item of note… if I eliminated a stock from my Portfolio during 2022, it’s not included in the table above.  However, if there was a dividend raise prior to my sale, I note it below.  Here are the 5 stocks that exited my Portfolio this year, in the order in which they departed.

• W.P. Carey (WPC)
• Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI)
• Gentex (GNTX)
• Gilead Sciences (GILD) – 2.82%
• STORE Capital (STOR) – 6.49%

 

There you have it… my dividend raise summary for 2022.  Here’s hoping for bigger raises in 2023!… after all, dividend raises are the primary contributor to my forward dividend income added throughout the year.

How did dividend raises turn out for you in 2022?