Alright, we’re in the home stretch now. It’s the first month of Q4 and our last chance to put an exclamation mark on 2023 dividend income.
Sure it was yet another month of declines in my Portfolio value in October, but the dividend income kept flowing into my account… like it always does.
When the markets are down and my dividends are getting reinvested, I’m raking in awesome amounts of additional forward dividend income. I’ll look back and marvel at the low prices I was getting for those reinvestments, too.
So, while the pain in the short-term is less than desirable, in the long-term I’ll be feeling good and most likely sitting pretty.
Here’s a quick preview of what’s coming in this month’s report…
Monthly dividend income hovered around $1.3K in October. Did I cross that threshold though? Keep reading to find out.
As you know, I target 15% for monthly Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth. When I fall below 10% I’m a tad disappointed, and when I top 20% I’m thrilled. Well, let me tell you, I had a good thrill this month. Stick around to find out how thrilling it was.
I was looking at a stellar month from the perspective of additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital). However, on the day before Halloween I received some frightening Portfolio news that slashed my monthly totals. I’ll soon share with you my scary news.
The number of dividend raises pretty much filed in as expected in October. I even received one double-digit raise – love those! It was the news regarding a stock that I wasn’t expecting a raise from that rocked my month.
In October I purged one stock from my Portfolio, introduced another, and added to 3 existing holdings. The end result was some invested cash and a decent bump to my forward dividend income. I’ll let you know all the stocks involved a bit later.
For the month, additional forward dividend income reached triple-digits… my standard target level. But, it could have been so much better… can you say $200+? I’ll explain why I didn’t achieve that lofty number.
As usual, I’ll provide some updated progress charts as well. Who doesn’t like visual representations, right?
Let’s do this… here are the details for this month’s dividend income report, beginning with my dividend income…
Dividend Income
Dividend income ended the month of October at $1,296.13. Man! …just short of $1.3K. That’s 3 months in a row of being off less than $6 from a nice, round $100 level. What’s with that?
Oh well… at least YoY dividend growth wiped that frown off my face, as it came in at a stellar 21.08%. That’s my 4th time exceeding 21% in a month this year. I’ll take it! It was a nice rebound from last month when I failed to reach a double-digit percentage.
A total of 23 companies paid me a dividend in October. That’s a solid total. Only two stocks provided a triple-digit dividend though. No worries, I suspect more might be coming in the year ahead. I’ve got 3 stocks that could be knocking on that door by year-end 2024.
The largest dividend of the month came courtesy of Altria Group (MO), which sent me $140.55. My runner-up dividend was $117.95 from RPM International (RPM). This RPM dividend got boosted from the company’s dividend raise early in the month.
My smallest October dividend was delivered by McCormick & Co. (MKC) which paid me $13.85. The dividends from Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) and FedEx (FDX) were not too much bigger at $17.40 and $17.94, respectively.
The increased dividend amounts from Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Comcast (CMCSA), Medtronic (MDT), Realty Income (O) and MKC were each helped by one or more purchases over the past year.
Increased YoY amounts for all other companies were a result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year. I added more than $16 in YoY dividend gains from MO, better than $12 from RPM, and topped $7 from Illinois Tool Works (ITW) and Merck & Co. (MRK). The more than $6 gain from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), and the better than $5 gains from Nike (NKE) and Main Street Capital (MAIN) were notable, too.
Of the October stocks that paid me both last year and this year, none showed a payout reduction! No dividend cuts from this group and no trims on my part.
As for new dividend payers in October, I had four. UGI Corp. (UGI) and Best Buy (BBY) debuted with close to $50 each. Meanwhile, American Tower (AMT) paid almost $30 and FedEx (FDX) provided under $18, but were appreciated just the same.
Lastly, there were two stocks that no longer paid me a dividend this October: Medical Properties Trust (MPW) and STORE Capital (STOR). I eliminated MPW earlier this year due to poor performance and an unsafe dividend, while I sold STOR late in 2022, shortly before the stock was taken private.
As usual, all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. Not all of my Medtronic (MDT) dividend got reinvested though, as my broker withheld a tiny amount (14 cents) – not sure why, as I haven’t investigated… maybe foreign tax withholding? Anyway, the result of all the reinvestment was an additional $52.05 of forward dividend income. This easily surpassed my $35 monthly target. The reinvestment of MO accounted for nearly $13, or close to 25% of this month’s forward dividend income progress.
As a result of October’s reinvested dividends, I purchased nearly 20 new shares of stock. Impressive! This included better than 3 shares of MO, more than 2 shares of UGI, and north of 1 share each of VICI, CMCSA, OGE, RPM & MAIN.
Dividend Raises
October dividend raises rolled in as advertised. I got all 5 that I was expecting, including a larger than normal one from one of my largest dividend payers, and a hefty double-digit raise from a usual source.
Unfortunately, I got an unexpected dividend cut, too, from a stock that I thought would keep their dividend flat. This development took a stellar month of additional forward dividend income from raises to a below average one in a matter of a moment. Ugh.
I was extremely happy with how the month began. RPM provided a 9.52% dividend hike. The usual raise from RPM has been in the 4%-7% range over recent short-term and long-term time periods, so this was a noticeable jump. Since RPM is one of my largest dividend payers, its raise resulted in an ample $41.03 in additional forward dividend income.
A couple days later, Lockheed Martin (LMT) announced a 5% raise of its dividend. This fell short of the prior year’s 7.14% raise, and the associated forward dividend income boost came up shy of double digits, at $9.02.
My smallest dividend raise of the month was provided by Pinnacle West Capital (PNW). PNW announced the same 1.5 cent dividend increase as last year, which led to a slightly lower raise percentage of 1.73% this year. The raise boosted my forward dividend income by $3.86.
Coming through with my largest dividend raise in October, in percentage terms, was Visa (V). The raise was a solid 15.56%. This didn’t reach the 20% hike that V provided last year, but it still made me happy, especially this year, when raises have been subpar relative to the recent past. The hefty hike added $25.84 to my forward dividend income.
Rounding out my raises was the one from my largest dividend payer… AbbVie (ABBV). It was another 7 cent dividend raise, the same as last year. Even though this year’s raise came up shy of 5%, at 4.73%, it almost provided my biggest forward dividend income boost of the month at $39.33.
I figured that was going to be all for dividend raises for the month… and I was right. What I didn’t expect was that V.F. Corp (VFC) would cut its dividend. I was expecting VFC to hold its dividend steady, especially after cutting its dividend 41% back in February. This cut was not only the VFC’s second of the year, but it was more severe (70%) than the first one. It cost me $91.22 in forward dividend income. Ouch!
After accounting for all my October dividend raises, and that single dividend cut, my forward dividend income increased by $27.86. The cut wiped out what would have been a triple-digit additional forward dividend income month for dividend raises, but instead almost single-handedly erased all my gains for the month.
I’d have to invest $954.11 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.92% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to November, I’m expecting 7 raises, but hoping that I hear of a couple more. I expect to hear from Aflac (AFL), Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Nike (NKE), Hormel Foods (HRL), Merck & Co. (MRK), McCormick & Co. (MKC) and Enbridge (ENB). The two additional stocks that might deliver a raise include Main Street Capital (MAIN) and The Walt Disney Co. (DIS). As of this writing, three of the above companies have already announced dividend raises in November, but I’ll save those details for next month.
Dividends Due To New Investment
I did execute a few Portfolio transactions during the month of October. In total, I had one sale and four buys.
Early in the month I eliminated Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) from my Portfolio. I tried to stay out in front of what’s looking like a dividend cut for the stock (time will tell). All the sale proceeds went into establishing a new position in ENB, which sported an equivalent yield and a safer dividend at the time. This also returned an Energy stock to my Portfolio, something that’s been absent for a few years.
The remaining three buys were of existing Portfolio stocks. I added to one of my average-sized positions (from the Information Technology sector no less!) in Texas Instruments (TXN), as well as added to a couple of my smaller holdings in MKC and Cummins (CMI).
Details for all 5 of my October transactions can be found in the following two posts…
Recent Transactions – WBA & ENB
My transactions resulted in an net investment of $1,298.15 into my Portfolio. My forward dividend income increased by a total of $37.42.
With one stock exiting my Portfolio, one being added, and the other three moves being additions to existing holdings, the number of stocks in my Portfolio 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 was staring at $200+ for additional forward dividend income in October until that VFC dividend cut on the day before Halloween put a damper on my month. Still, I totaled over $100, which has kept me in striking distance of a $2K total for the year.
Accounting for all the sources, I added $117.33 of additional forward dividend income this October. This was noticeably weaker than last October’s total of $181.99, but again, avoid that dividend cut and last year’s total is beaten.
Reinvested Dividends was my top source for additional forward dividend income in October, totaling $52.05. It’s been a strong year for this category with most of my stocks not faring well for the year (allowing me to reinvest at lower prices/higher yields). One can see that I’ve almost generated the same additional forward dividend income from this source in 10 months ($485.27) that I did for all of last year ($489.28).
Contributions from Investment of Capital delivered my next highest total, at $37.42 for the month. This amount didn’t quite measure up to the same time last year ($43.80) or last month ($44.14). Reaching $500 for the year may not be feasible as I’ve already invested all the capital I planned to for 2023. Maybe I can round up enough money for a few small investments before year end.
Again, disappointment came from Dividend Raises after the total was affected by the VFC dividend cut. It would have been a sweet $100+ month of October otherwise. I’ve still got a shot to reach $1K in Dividend Raises for the year, but I don’t think I’ll match the $1,173.82 I posted last year.
At $1,609.07 for the current running total of additional forward dividend income for 2023, still reaching $2K is not out of the question. A couple of $200 months to close out 2023 would do the trick. However, eclipsing the $2,202.56 from last year is looking pretty far away with just 2 more months to get there.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
I just fell short of reaching $1.3K for October, but the YoY gain I posted for this October is noticeable in the chart. That’s progress I can get behind.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
I shouldn’t have any problem surpassing last year’s dividend total of $15,208.55 next month after reducing the difference between 2022 and 2023 to less than $1K in October. That means that in the back half of this November and all of this December I’ll be padding a record annual dividend total.
Summary
It was another terrific month of dividends for my Portfolio. October saw me collect over $1,296 in dividends from 23 different companies.
Two of the dividend payers provided triple-digit dividends (including over $140 from MO), but a whopping 16 more topped $40. Solid contributions flowed in from this month’s payers to be sure.
YoY dividend growth was outstanding, as it exceeded 21%. This easily topped my monthly 15% target.
My reinvested dividends allowed me to drip almost 20 new shares of stock. These reinvestments also generated over $52 of additional forward dividend income.
I received word of 5 dividend raises for stocks in my Portfolio in October, but the majority of the benefit from these raises was erased due to a VFC 70% dividend cut late in the month. This cut was certainly unexpected after VFC cut 41% earlier this year. On the bright side, my Portfolio got really nice dividend hikes from V and RPM during the month. Additional forward dividend income approached $28 after all raises & cuts were factored in.
Five Portfolio transactions were made in my Portfolio in October. These moves included one stock exiting my Portfolio (WBA), one stock being added (ENB), and three others getting a small share count boost (MKC, TXN & CMI). Accounting for all the transactions, I invested a little over $1,298 into my Portfolio, resulting in an increase of better than $37 in additional forward dividend income.
Tallying the contributions from all sources, I added over $117 in additional forward dividend income. This was a solid total that could have been pushed over $200 had I not experienced that VFC dividend cut. Achieving a couple of annual dividend targets remain in play with 2 months in 2023 remaining.
As for my Portfolio’s annual forward dividend income, I crossed the $18K mark this month. That’s a cool $1.5K/month that I’m now averaging. I like it!
Did any surprise dividend raise percentages, or dividend cuts, hit your portfolio in October? What are you thinking about your dividend total/progress for 2023 with two months to go? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.