It’s time for another dividend income update! My Portfolio got off to a good 2024 start last month with regard to dividends and increasing value, and it’s continued in February.
Each month that goes by the growth and progress continues and it motivates me to keep going. Time will do the majority of the work… with a little oversight on my part.
Here’s a preview of the dividend highlights for my Portfolio in February, before I start unveiling all the specifics…
One company shifted its dividend payment compared to last year, bringing some unexpected income to me this month. As a result, monthly dividend income blew well past $1.5K. How far I went past that level will be known soon enough.
That shifted dividend payment also resulted in an impressive Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth percentage for February. I usually target of 15% YoY growth, and am stoked with anything north of 20%. Let’s just say both of those numbers were well in my rear view mirror in February.
Also bringing some excitement to me was the fact that additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) exceeded $200 for a 4th straight month. I thought that streak would end in February, but I’m happy it didn’t. The final monthly numbers are coming your way.
My dividend progress charts will have their updates, too – there will be monthly and annual dividend income charts to peruse.
Bring on the details, starting with my dividend income for February…
Dividend Income
It was a terrific total for February. I collected dividends totaling $1,593.33. With Fastenal (FAST) moving their dividend back to late February (after 3 years at the beginning of March), my February total got a solid boost. This pushed my total well past $1.5K and had me fast approaching $1.6K, but I fell a bit short.
While the shifting FAST dividend payment was good for February, it will detract from March, which typically isn’t a big deal. However, in this case it’s going to stop me from reaching $2K in dividends next month… a milestone that I was looking forward to, but will now have to push out in time.
YoY dividend growth looked extra impressive in February as a result of the FAST dividend moving between months. I soared right past 15%, 20% and 25% increases to end at 27.99%. Awesome!
A total of 19 companies paid me a dividend in February. Leading the way was AbbVie (ABBV), which provided a stellar $220.06 dividend… my largest single regular dividend ever. Thanks to continued outstanding dividend growth from Nexstar Media Group (NXST), the dividend from NXST came close to topping $200 as well. The official number was $191.33. It’s hard not to like that.
In addition to ABBV and NXST, four more dividend payers delivered a triple-digit dividend. I love seeing this number of companies grow. CVS Health (CVS) is competing be the next to reach this level within my Portfolio after it came rather close with its $97.26 dividend.
Posting my smallest dividend of the month, at $19.63, was Accenture (ACN). This was my only company dividend below the $25 quarterly level (or $100 annually).
The increased dividend amounts from Verizon Communications (VZ), CVS, Starbucks (SBUX), Texas Instruments (TXN), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), NNN REIT (NNN), Realty Income (O) and ACN 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 $43 in YoY dividend gains from NXST after a monster dividend in January, north of $18 from ABBV, exceeded $17 from FAST, and surpassed $7 each from Procter & Gamble (PG) and Lowe’s Companies (LOW).
Of the stocks that paid me in both February of last year and this year, none of them posted a payout reduction. Make that two months in a row for this. I’m certain this directly aided my strong YoY dividend growth number this month.
As for new dividend payers in February, I had two of them, for different reasons. We already discussed what happened with FAST. Their dividend shifted from March of last year to February of this year, and the $131.29 this time around easily topped the $114.24 from a year ago. As for American Tower (AMT), the stock was new to my Portfolio in the past year. It delivered a solid February debut dividend of $31.18.
As for stocks that no longer pay me a dividend in February, I only had one. It was a dividend from Quest Diagnostics (DGX), impacted by a shifting dividend payment schedule as well. The $37.85 dividend from last February became a $41.54 dividend delivered last month.
As usual, all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. However, there were a few exceptions this month. First, my Hormel Foods (HRL) dividend didn’t get reinvested since I sold my position and there was no holding to reinvest into. As for General Dynamics (GD) and ACN, those dividends were partially reinvested. The reinvestment amount for GD was impacted by my trim, while the one from ACN resulted from a tax withholding.
The result of the reinvestment that did take place was an additional $53.43 of forward dividend income. That’s now 6 months in a row exceeding $50 – tremendous! ABBV, NXST and VZ combined accounted for more than $22 of this month’s additional forward dividend income total. Meanwhile, PG, CVS & BMY all topped $3 each, with another 5 stocks contributing better than $2 each.
As a result of February’s reinvested dividends, I dripped more than 15 new shares of stock. This included over 2.5 shares of VZ, more than 1.75 shares of FAST, and better than 1 share each from five other holdings.
Dividend Raises
I was a surprised a couple of times in February by the dividend raises coming from a few my holdings.
What stood out first was a couple of unexpected raises that came my way. Second, the raise percentages were higher than I thought they’d be – four of the raises reached double digits.
My Portfolio saw a total of 7 dividend raises in February, with two being those unexpected ones. This helped replace a couple of raises that I was hoping for, but wasn’t expecting to receive.
On the first day of the month, Quest Diagnostics (DGX) announced a 5.63% raise. This fell shy of the 7.58% raise from last year, but I found the percentage reasonable.
The next week was active for dividend raises. Amdocs Ltd. (DOX), started things off with a 10.11% raise, just shy of last year’s 10.13% hike. Double-digit raises are always welcomed and it’s one of the reasons DOX is part of my Portfolio.
My next two dividend raises were the surprises. The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) continued its efforts to return its dividend to previous levels. After reinstating their dividend last last year, I wasn’t expecting a raise so soon. But it arrived, and it was a healthy 50% boost. Despite the terrific raise percentage though, the dividend is only back to ~50% of its pre-pandemic level. There’s more work to do.
Hershey Co. (HSY) stunned me with its dividend raise of 14.93% only 7 months after its last raise… the usual one that occurs in July. I’ll be interested to see if there’s another dividend hike delivered this coming July. HSY was only added to my Portfolio last month, so to get the unexpected dividend raise so quickly was terrific.
A solid 7.11% dividend raise came from Pepsico (PEP). While this didn’t match the 10% hike from last year, I was still excited about the percentage PEP delivered as it resulted in my best forward dividend income increase of the month ($42.80) since PEP is one of my larger Portfolio positions.
I’d have to say Cisco Systems (CSCO) provided the most disappointing raise of the month at 2.56%. Since I’ve owned the stock (coming up on 5 years now), CSCO has only provided 1 cent annual dividend raises. Thus, the dividend raise percentage from CSCO has always been south of 3% for me, and that percentage dwindles every year.
At least I was able to end the month on a good note, as NextEra Energy (NEE) not only announced a 10.16% dividend raise (topping last year’s 10% boost), but also announced that it’s planning for similar raise percentages for the next couple of years, too.
Unfortunately, Realty Income (O) didn’t announce its ‘big’ annual dividend raise in February (big relative to their four token quarterly raises). This brings into question if we’ll only see the four token dividend hikes in 2024. In addition, both Omnicom Group (OMC) and Whirlpool (WHR) kept their dividends in a freeze. I was thinking OMC would be likely to raise after pausing for a couple of years, but I was wrong.
After accounting for all my February dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by triple-digits again… $105.19. About 40% of the total came from PEP, but NEE and HSY provided forward dividend income contributions better than $14, too.
I’d have to invest $3,925.00 at my Portfolio’s recent yield of 2.68% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to March, it’s the first month of a slower 6-month period for dividend raises in my Portfolio. I’m only expecting four dividend raises in March, with one of those being one of the token raises from O. I expect to hear from Qualcomm (QCOM), General Dynamics (GD), and hopefully American Tower (AMT) as well. As it turns out, I’ve already heard dividend raise announcements from two of the companies I listed just above, but I’ll save those details for next month. I’m pretty certain my streak of triple-digit increases to my forward dividend income from dividend raises only will end in March.
Dividends Due To New Investment
Transaction activity was high in February. I made a total of ten moves this month, with eight of them in the back half of the month. In total, there were two sales and eight purchases.
One of the sales was a small trim, while the other was a complete elimination of a position. The purchases were made across four different sectors: Utilities (3), Information Technology (2), Real Estate (2) and Healthcare (1).
Details for all ten of my February transactions can be found in the following four posts…
Recent Transactions – FAST & SWKS
Recent Transactions – BBY, DOX, UGI, VICI, MDT, OGE
My transactions resulted in an net investment of $985.07 into my Portfolio. My forward dividend income increased by a total of $44.87.
With one stock exiting my Portfolio among all the transactions, the number of stocks in my Portfolio dropped to 58.
Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income
In 2024, 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 2023 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.
Accounting for all the sources, I added $203.49 of additional forward dividend income in February. That’s four months in a row exceeding $200 in forward dividend income.
I nearly doubled up the forward dividend income total from last February, which was hampered by the first of two V.F. Corp (VFC) dividend cuts during 2023.
Reinvested Dividends remained strong, topping $50 for the 6th consecutive month… a wonderful run. I expect to see this streak continue in March.
Dividend Raises reached triple-digits for a 4th straight month, but I believe that will come to an end in March as the next six months will be less plentiful for dividend hikes.
Additional forward dividend income due to Investment of Capital surpassed $40 for each of the first two months of 2024. We’ll see if I can keep that up.
For the year, I’ve already added over $548 in additional forward dividend income. I’m ahead of last year’s pace, but there’s a long way to go before year’s end. Unfortunately, that pace will slow down in the spring and summer. Still, it’s nice to get off to a good start, allowing me to think about surpassing my best year (2021), when I added $2,224.04 of additional forward dividend income.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
One can see that nice YoY jump in February dividend income. That shifted FAST payment was a big benefit this month.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
Two months in 2024 and I’ve already surpassed my dividend total from all of 2015. Sweet! That’s some good progress.
Summary
February is a short month, but I didn’t come up short in my dividend totals. In February, I tallied over $1,593 in dividends. One of my better dividend payers (FAST) switching their payment from early March last year to late February this year was a positive factor in the strong number. Speaking of strong, YoY dividend income growth was nearly 28% in February. This came close to nearly doubling my target growth percentage of 15%. I can’t recall the last time I had a percentage that high.
A total of 19 companies paid me a dividend in February. Six of those companies managed paying me a triple-digit dividend. Only one stock fell shy of delivering at least $26.
More than $53 of additional forward dividend income was recorded from Reinvested dividends. Make it six straight months that I’ve topped the $50 mark.
I had 7 dividend raises in February, with more than half of them being a double-digit increase. DIS provided an outstanding 50% hike, but since my position and the stock’s yield are so small, it didn’t impact my forward dividend income very much. The dividend hikes from HSY, NEE & DOX all topped 10%. While the PEP raise was only a bit more than 7%, it provided the most benefit to my forward dividend income since it’s one of my largest holdings. All the February raises added more than $105 to my additional forward dividend income.
Portfolio transactions remained elevated to start the year, with 10 more this month. There were two sales and eight buys in February. The sales were a trim of FAST due to a high valuation, and an elimination of Best Buy (BBY) due to slowing earnings and dividend growth. Nearly all the buys were additions to smaller Portfolio holdings to help them move toward a 1% weighting in my Portfolio. The net investment for the entire set of transactions was a bit more than $985, creating nearly $45 in additional forward dividend income.
Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $203 in forward dividend income was added my Portfolio in February, marking the 4th consecutive month I’ve added that much.
Which stock provided your largest dividend in February? Were you on the receiving end of some nice dividend raises this month? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.