Oh boy, it was another downer for my Portfolio value in September, but at least the dividend income kept rolling in.
The value of my Portfolio will swing up and down, but I expect the dividend income to slowly increase over time… and that’s exactly what’s happened over the past few years. It’s a thing of beauty.
Before we dive into the details of this month’s dividend income post, let’s get a preview…
Monthly dividend income approached $1.8K, but did it make it? You’ll know in just a moment.
I fell short of my monthly Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth target. I shoot for topping 15%, but sometimes that’s a high bar to leap. How low was YoY growth in September?
I received good contributions to my additional forward dividend income in September from all 3 of my sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital). Each provided at least $40. However, which category set the pace for the month? That info will be yours soon.
Dividend raises were plentiful, as 9 of my Portfolio companies hiked their payouts. However, one company was rather quiet with regard to an announcement. Stick around to find out which one.
Despite further declines in the stock market this month, I scaled back my new capital investment a bit in September. Still, there was investment and I’ll go over what I added and the new dividend income the purchases brought.
In total, additional forward dividend income ended the month as my 3rd best monthly total of 2023. But did I exceed the $200 total I was hoping for? That answer is coming shortly.
I’ve got progress chart updates to share as well, for both monthly and annual dividends.
Let the fun begin… here are the details for this month’s dividend income report, beginning with my dividend income…
Dividend Income
For September, dividend income finished the month at $1,794.85. I came up just shy of a $100 level for the 2nd month in a row. However, it was my 2nd best monthly total ever!
YoY dividend growth was a bit of a disappointment, settling in at 8.44%. I didn’t even manage to get into double-digit territory for the percentage. Oh well, I’ll look to rebound next month.
A total of 22 companies paid me a dividend in September. Eight of the companies delivered a triple-digit dividend, all of them over $115, too.
The highest dividend of the month was delivered by Qualcomm (QCOM) which paid me $168.61. The $162.33 dividend from T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) and $159.90 from Broadcom (AVGO) were a close 2nd and 3rd.
My smallest September dividend came from Microsoft (MSFT)… which provided $11.11. The 2nd smallest dividend was roughly 50% larger… $17.38 from Cummins (CMI).
The increased dividend amounts from Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), Visa (V), NextEra Energy (NEE), Realty Income (O) and MSFT were each helped by one or more purchases over the past year.
A quarterly supplemental dividend boosted the regular monthly dividend from Main Street Capital (MAIN), making the YoY dividend increase look rather impressive.
Increased YoY amounts for all other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year. I added more than $21 in YoY dividend gains from AVGO, nearly $17 from Pepsico (PEP), north of $14 from QCOM, better than $12 from SWKS, and over $9 from TROW, Aflac (AFL) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).
Of the stocks that paid me both last year and this year, only one showed a payout reduction, and that was V.F. Corp (VFC). VFC cut their dividend earlier in 2023, directly resulting in the reduction.
As for new dividend payers in September, there was only one… Whirlpool (WHR). It provided $26.92 in its debut.
Lastly, there were two stocks that no longer paid me a dividend this September: Gilead Sciences (GILD) and 3M Co. (MMM). I sold both stocks due to poor price performance and slowing dividend growth. GILD was let go in October of last year, while MMM was purged in February of this year.
As usual, nearly all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. The exception was the dividend from Walgreens Boots Allliance (WBA), which I chose to just take. WBA has been performing so poorly that I didn’t want to buy more. The result of all the reinvestment was an additional $55.58 of forward dividend income. This blew by the $35 monthly target I have. The reinvestments of TROW, MAIN, QCOM and PEP packed the biggest punch, accounting for more than $22, or better than 40%, of the forward dividend income progress.
As a result of September’s reinvested dividends, I purchased close to 15 new shares of stock. This included nearly 2 shares of MAIN and better than 1.5 shares each of AFL, VFC, TROW & QCOM.
Dividend Raises
After seeing a doubling of the number of dividend raises I received from July to August, I more than doubled up going from August to September.
The quantity of raises increased from 4 in August to 9 in September. Unfortunately, this increase in the number of dividend hikes didn’t translate to a doubling of additional forward dividend income. In fact, it didn’t even lead to securing more additional forward dividend income than last month. Still, I’ll take any extra income I can get.
A couple of the raise percentages reached double-digit territory, which has been fairly uncommon in 2023, at least for my Portfolio stocks.
Sadly, those good raise percentages were applied to some of my smallest dividend payers, so there wasn’t a huge impact to my forward dividend income.
My first pair of raise announcements came a week into the month. Dividend raises were announced by Verizon Communications (VZ) and VICI Properties (VICI). The VZ raise was 1.92%, about on par with what VZ had been delivering over the past few years. The boost from VICI was notably better at 6.41%, but it still fell short of last year’s VICI raise of 8.33%.
Realty Income (O) delivered one of its small quarterly hikes about a week later. It was a 0.2% bump that brought its annual raise percentage to 3.02%.
My first double-digit raise of the month came courtesy of MSFT. The company announced a 10.29% dividend raise, besting its 9.68% boost from last year.
After not delivering a dividend raise in Q1 of this year (it’s been providing quarterly raises the past few years), American Tower (AMT) announced its 2nd raise of 2023. This one was a 3.18% boost, which brought its total raise percentage this year to 3.85%.
My best raise of the month, in terms of the boost it provided to my forward dividend income, came from Starbucks (SBUX). The raise was 7.55%, which resulted in a $20.76 increase in forward dividend income… easily my best total for September. Unfortunately, this increase failed to live up to the 8.16% hike SBUX provided last year.
I was disappointed with the 4.84% raise announcement from Texas Instruments (TXN) this month. It not only fell far short of the 7.83% raise from last year, but it continued a deceleration of the double-digit dividend growth that TXN has had over the past decade.
The expectations for the dividend raise from OGE Energy (OGE) were low coming into the month considering last year’s boost was 1.0%. Sadly, OGE could not beat expectations and provided a 0.99% dividend hike, leading to a sad $1.82 increase in additional forward dividend income.
My last raise of the month came from Accenture (ACN), and it was the best in terms of raise percentage. ACN delivered a 15.18% dividend hike, my 2nd best percentage raise of 2023. If only I had a bigger ACN position, I could have fully appreciated the magnitude of the raise. This raise topped the average ACN boost of approximately 10%.
One company I didn’t hear from in September, but was expecting to, was Lockheed Martin (LMT). LMT has been pretty consistent with the timing of their late-September dividend raise announcement, but no word has surfaced yet, even a week into October.
After accounting for all my September dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by a satisfactory $73.41. Considering I has 9 raises, this feels a bit low. The total failed to surpass the one from last month, when I only had 4 dividend raises.
I’d have to invest $2,488.47 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.95% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to October, I’m expecting fewer raises compared to September, but a larger impact to my additional forward dividend income (a triple-digit total maybe?). I expect to hear from LMT to start, but also RPM International (RPM), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), Visa (V) and AbbVie (ABBV). It’s also the normal raise month for V.F. Corp (VFC), but I can’t imagine a dividend raise is coming from that company given their current troubles. As of this writing, one of the above companies have already announced a dividend hike in the first week of October, but I’ll save those details for next month.
Dividends Due To New Investment
After a hot August in terms of Portfolio transaction activity, there was a noticeable cool down in September. However, I still managed to execute 3 buys, bolstering some positions and adding to my forward dividend income.
I recorded 3 purchases in September, and no sales. All of the buys were of existing positions, and smaller positions at that.
I scooped up shares of a REIT and a Utilities stock, as those sectors have been hammered recently, but also continued to enhance one of my Information Technology positions that I wish to see grow.
Details for all 3 of my buys can be found in the following post…
My transactions resulted in an net investment of $1,774.51 into my Portfolio. My forward dividend income increased by a total of $44.14.
Since all 3 of my buys were of existing Portfolio stocks, the number of stocks in my Portfolio didn’t budge and remained at 60.
Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income
In 2023, I 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 2022 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.
I’ve got a quarter left to try and top my Additional Forward Dividend Income total of just over $2.2K from last year. I’m not sure I’ll make it (thanks to the disappointing year from Dividend Raises), but crossing the $2K threshold would be nice and looks more doable.
Accounting for all the sources, I added $173.13 of additional forward dividend income in September. This was nearly $50 shy of last September’s total of $221.56, and also less than the $235.53 I posted last month.
While the $173.13 amount doesn’t seem exciting, and was lower than the $200 I was targeting, it was my 3rd best total for any month in 2023.
All three sources provided solid contributions in excess of $44 in September. I like the balanced contributions I’m getting. Dividend Raises provided the biggest total ($73.41), but left me wanting for more from those 9 dividend raises. Reinvested Dividends exceeded expectations ($55.58) due to lower stock prices resulting in more shares bought via reinvestment. Investment of Capital brought up the rear in September ($44.14) after leading the pack in August.
I’m now about $50 behind last year’s pace for additional forward dividend income. So, I’d say there’s a chance to top the $2,202.56 I totaled for additional forward dividend income in 2022. However, I’ll probably need some unexpectedly good Dividend Raises in the final quarter of the year, or an Investment of Capital surge to get there.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
I was so close to hitting that $1,800 line this September. It would have been just the 2nd time ever reaching that level for any month. I don’t see reaching that level this December either, so I guess I’ll have to target next March.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
Not a bad year at all thus far. I nearly racked up more dividends in 9 months of 2023, than I did for all of 2021.
Summary
I’ve been stacking ever-increasing monthly YoY dividend totals for my Portfolio nearly every month for the past 6+ years and that continued in September.
This month I raked in nearly $1,795 in dividends from 22 companies. Three of the dividend payers topped $150, while another five exceeded $115. It was a banner month.
One area lacking this month was YoY dividend growth, which came in at just less than 8.5%… well short of my monthly 15% target.
On the bright side, I dripped over 14.8 new shares of stock by reinvesting my September dividends. This allowed the additional forward dividend income from these reinvested dividends to approach $56.
The total number of dividend raises I had in September was terrific… 9! I even had a couple of the raises reach double-digit percentages. Unfortunately, I only averaged a bit more than $8 in additional forward dividend income for each of those raises, totaling a little over $73.
I made 3 purchases during the month, adding shares to 3 existing Portfolio holdings. Each buy made a fairly small Portfolio position just a bit more significant. Accounting for all 3 purchases, I made a net investment of nearly $1,775 and boosted my additional forward dividend income by a little more than $44.
Tallying the contributions from all sources, I posted a solid total just over $173. Although, this was shy of the $200 I was hoping for, it was large enough keep me within striking distance of topping my annual total from 2022.
As for my Portfolio’s annual forward dividend income, I finished the month with a total of $17,957.61 (or an average of $1,496.47/month). I’ll definitely be averaging over $1.5K by the end of next month!
Did you notch a record dividend total for this quarter-ending month of September? Are your annual goals in sight with one quarter left in 2023? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.