The end of the month has rolled around and now it’s time to tally up those dividends. What a tremendous time, and I get to do it 12 times a year!
There’s not much better than watching those dividends effortlessly hit my account, and parlaying them into even bigger future dividends. I highly recommend it to anyone who will listen.
We’re well into 2024 at this point and unless something dramatic happens in the market or with my holdings during the short-term, my Portfolio is slated for another record year.
I look forward to the final total. However, for right now, I’m only focused on what’s in front of me – and that’s April’s dividends. Here’s a preview…
The dividend payment I noted last month that moved from March to April worked in my favor this month. Thus, April’s dividend total got a handsome boost. Surprisingly, the shifted dividend turned out to be my biggest dividend of the month.
Of course, this extra dividend for April led to stellar Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth for the month. I can say I easily surpassed the usual 15% YoY growth target I have. But how far past that threshold did I go? The answer will be yours shortly.
Each month I have 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) add to my annual forward dividend income. In April, I had nice contributions from all the sources, and I notched a triple-digit month as a result. Did I surpass the total from last month, or the total from the same month last year? Keep reading and you’ll know soon enough.
Don’t forget… I’ve got updated dividend progress charts to share with you, too – both monthly and annual income numbers.
Let’s see those dividend details, starting with my dividend income for April…
Dividend Income
April saw me push past $1.5K in dividends and finish with a total of $1,518.76. With Pepsico (PEP) slipping their usual March dividend into April, I was able to cross the $1.5K level. Had that dividend stayed in March, my April total would have been well short of $1.4K. So, it made quite the difference.
YoY growth looked amazing for April thanks to that PEP dividend arriving. YoY growth was just shy of 25%, at 24.74%. It would have been 12.39% had the PEP dividend been paid in March like it usually is.
A total of 23 companies paid me a dividend in April… a very healthy number for me. PEP led all the dividend payers, providing $150.39. The $147.10 from Altria Group (MO) qualified as a close second.
Triple-digit dividend payers weren’t too prominent in April, as I only had three of them. However, 3 more stocks will probably join the club by this time next year, as they each topped $92 this time around.
Two of my stocks came close to delivering my smallest dividend of the month. However, it was McCormick & Co. (MKC) that got the honor. MKC paid me $17.64. Not too far ahead was FedEx (FDX) which provided $18.11.
The increased dividend amounts from Automatic Data Processing (ADP), OGE Energy (OGE), VICI Properties (VICI), Medtronic (MDT), American Tower (AMT), Amdocs Ltd. (DOX), 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 $17 in YoY dividend gains from MO, better than $15 from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), and north of $12 each from RPM International (RPM) and ADP.
Of the stocks that paid me in both April of last year and this year, none of them posted a payout reduction. Make it now 4 months in a row achieving this! Basically this is the result of minimal trimming of Portfolio positions and no meaningful dividend cuts.
As for new April dividend payers, there were two. The most significant one was that from PEP, as noted earlier. The $150.39 dividend payment shift from PEP added noticeably to this month’s dividend total. The second new payer was UGI Corp. (UGI). This stock was a Portfolio addition from about 9 months ago. It debuted nicely this month with a dividend of $68.34.
On the flip side, regarding stocks that no longer pay me a dividend this April… there were two as well. The first was Medical Properties Trust (MPW), which was eliminated from my Portfolio due to poor performance and a deteriorating business. I said goodbye to a $50.51 dividend. The second was Best Buy (BBY), which I had a much harder time selling, but parted ways with nonetheless. In this case I walked away from a $46.50 dividend.
As usual, the majority of my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. There were some exceptions though. MO didn’t get reinvested, as this was the first payment after turning off my DRiP. I didn’t want to see the position get bigger, and with the big MO yield it was growing faster than I wanted. My MDT dividend didn’t get entirely reinvested, as a portion was withheld by my broker for tax purposes. Lastly, there was the DOX dividend which didn’t get reinvested since my broker doesn’t offer reinvestment for this security.
The result of the reinvestment that did take place was an additional $42.48 of forward dividend income. My streak of 7 months in a row exceeding $50 came to an end. The streak would have been extended had I not turned off the MO DRiP, but that’s OK. PEP and UGI added over $4 each to this month’s additional forward dividend income total, while VICI added more than $3. A whopping 8 more companies added north of $2 each. Thus, there were plenty of contributors in April.
As a result of reinvested dividends in April, I dripped close to 18 new shares of stock. This included well over 2 shares of UGI. I also had more than 1.5 shares from VICI, OGE and Comcast (CMCSA). Throw in another 1 share each from RPM and Cisco Systems (CSCO), too.
Dividend Raises
Oh man, I recorded only 2 dividend raises in April. Talk about a slow month!
This is probably going to be my slowest dividend raise month of the year. But on the bright side, both of my dividend raises this month came from some of my larger holdings (both legacy stocks, by the way) thus the boost to my forward dividend income was a healthy amount.
Neither raise percentage reached double-digit territory, but they were both decent.
My first dividend raise of April came from Procter & Gamble (PG). PG came through with a 6.99% raise, more than doubling the 3% hike it delivered last year. This led to a $37.37 addition to my forward dividend income. I’ll take that, especially from a company that’s a Dividend King (where dividend growth can be hard to come by since corporate growth has usually slowed down).
My second and last dividend raise for April was delivered by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). Another Dividend King! JNJ had a more modest 4.20% dividend boost. This fell about 1 percentage point shy of last year’s 5.31% hike. The 4.20% raise also represented JNJ’s smallest raise since at least 2001 (if I’m not mistaken). Let’s hope the raise percentages can start climbing again… starting next year!
I was optimistic that I might see a 3rd dividend raise in April – one from FedEx (FDX). This was based on the fact that FDX raised in April of last year. However, prior year’s dividend raise announcements were done in June. Perhaps that’s the company’s plan in 2024. Thus, I may only need to wait another month or so before that FDX raise arrives. We’ll see.
After accounting for all my April dividend raises (all two of them), my additional forward dividend income added $58.34. For just two companies, that’s a nice total. However, it didn’t reach triple-digits, which is the level I hope to reach each month from dividend raises.
Still, I’d have to invest $2,113.77 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.76% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to May, I expect to see a bump in the number of dividend raises I receive. Perhaps there could be as many as 6 raise announcements, but 4 might be a more realistic number. I expect to hear from Main Street Capital (MAIN), Medtronic (MDT), American Tower (AMT) and Lowe’s Companies (LOW). Additionally, the possibility of a raise from UGI Corp. (UGI) or Union Pacific (UNP) are on the table. However, I think UGI will hold their dividend steady, while an announcement from UNP might be more likely in August, based on history. As of this writing, one of my expected raises came through, but I’ll save that for next month’s report.
Dividends Due To New Investment
After a month of March that resulted in zero Portfolio transaction activity for me, I was able to manage a couple of transactions in April.
With most stock prices falling for the first time in 6 months, I finally found two things I wanted to buy.
I added to a couple of my smaller positions in an effort to keep increasing their Portfolio weights toward the 1% level.
I added 5 shares of HSY and just a single share of ACN. The investment in HSY was roughly 3x the investment in ACN.
Further details about each of these investments can be found in the following pair of posts…
The two buys resulted in a net investment of $1,215.45 into my Portfolio. Correspondingly, my forward dividend income increased by $32.56. This is an effective yield of 2.68% for the combined purchases… very close to my average Portfolio yield.
With both stocks already part of my Portfolio, the number of stocks in my Portfolio remained at 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 tallied $133.38 of additional forward dividend income in April. I couldn’t reach a $200 total this month, but I did secure my 9th consecutive month of posting a triple-digit total.
I came up just shy of last month’s income total, but did manage to exceed the total from a year ago. This keeps me ahead of pace when it comes to topping last year’s additional forward dividend income total.
Contributions were fairly evenly distributed across the 3 sources, but Dividend Raises still led the way (as they usually do).
Reinvested Dividends came up short of $50, ending my 7-month streak. My decision to stop reinvesting my MO dividend was the culprit.
I had a nice bounce-back from the big zero I posted in Investment of Capital last month. However, Investment of Capital still contributed the least amount of income of the 3 sources in April.
However, all 3 sources managed to top their respective numbers from last year. That’s good progress, to be sure.
For the year, $817.33 in additional forward dividend income has been accumulated. That’s almost $38 ahead of last year’s pace one-third of the way through 2024. I’m glad to be ahead of pace, but the margin isn’t big. Thus, I’ll be keeping my foot on the gas. I’ve still got plenty of cash to invest, which will help keep me in front. I just need to get to it.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
The big YoY growth is noticeable for this April thanks to the PEP dividend that showed up in April instead of in March.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
I’m trying to see if I can collect $10K in dividends after 6 months. I may come up short. However, if I do reach that level after adding in the dividends from the next 2 months, I’d feel very confident of topping $20K for the year.
Summary
What was going to be a good month of dividends turned into a great month due to a PEP dividend payment that slid from March to April. When the dust settled, my Portfolio tallied nearly $1,519 in dividends for April.
The shifting PEP dividend payment also led to a stellar YoY dividend growth percentage of almost 25%. This blew away my target YoY growth percentage of 15%.
Dividend payers were plentiful in April, as a total of 23 companies delivered a dividend to me. Only 3 of those payers provided a triple-digit dividend, but 20 of the 23 did top a $25 dividend.
Reinvested Dividends accounted for better than $42 of additional forward dividend income. Unfortunately, this snapped a 7-month streak of exceeding $50.
Dividend Raises were hard to come by in April, as I only received 2 of them. Both were single-digit raise percentages. Thankfully, they came from two of my largest dividend payers, and this resulted in over $58 of additional forward dividend income.
I got back to investing again in April and was able to notch some additional forward dividend income due to Investment of Capital. I came close to reaching $33 from this source after making a couple of purchases of existing Portfolio holdings.
Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $133 in additional forward dividend income was added my Portfolio in April. That’s now 9 consecutive months topping $100.
I look forward to even bigger dividend totals in the coming months as I keep my Portfolio growing.
How did you fare with respect to dividend raises in April? I hope you exceeded the two I had. Did you have any shifting dividend payments impact your dividend total this month? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.