As I tallied up September dividend income the thought of 3 quarters of the year being complete came to my mind. There’s just 1 quarter left to hit my goals. The biggest goal being my $20K dividend income goal for 2024.
To reach that mark, I’m going to have to post some solid dividend income each month from here on out. But before I start focusing on Q4, let’s see how I wrapped up Q3.
Quarter-ending months usually provide the biggest monthly income numbers for most dividend investors, and it’s no different for my Portfolio. In fact, I posted record dividend income during my last quarter-ending month in June. Can I do it again?
I can tell you I eclipsed the $2K dividend level in September. But was this enough to establish a new monthly record for income? The answer is coming!
It’s been a while (April) since I hit my 15% target for monthly Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth. Is this the month I break that streak? Keep reading to find out.
September is the start of a 6-month stretch where I usually receive my best dividend raises of the year, at least in terms of the impact the raises have on my forward dividend income. I had 8 dividend raises this month. In a short while, I’ll let you know what that translated to for forward dividend income.
Portfolio transactions were very light this month, with just one purchase. However, it was a decent initial investment in a new Portfolio stock that boasts a nice dividend yield. Thus, my forward dividend income got a nice shot in the arm. More details are forthcoming.
In September, I had my 2nd-best month for additional forward dividend income from my sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital). I more than doubled last month’s total, too. All sources provided at least $50 this month, and I eclipsed the $200 mark. How far past that level did I go? I’ll share that soon.
As usual, I’ll have updated dividend progress charts to share near the end of this post (both monthly and annual). Hopefully, you’ll find those to be a good visual.
Let’s start this monthly dividend report with my September dividend details. Dividend income is first…
Dividend Income
Woohoo! A new monthly dividend record has been achieved! It wasn’t by much, but that’s OK. My Portfolio raked in $2,018.96 in dividends in September. This topped my previous record of $2,002.22 that was set just one quarter ago (June).
YoY growth was a respectable 12.49%. This was almost a percentage point better than last month, but it fell short of my normal 15% target.
A total of 21 companies paid me a dividend in September. The best part was 11 of those 21 dividend payments were of the triple-digit variety. Sweet! My top payer was Qualcomm (QCOM) at $183.05. Main Street Capital (MAIN) was able to deliver $100.73 thanks to a supplemental dividend it paid this quarter. My smallest dividend of the month was $13.85 and it came from Microsoft (MSFT). All my other dividends were at least twice the amount of the MSFT one.
The increased dividend amounts from BlackRock (BLK), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), NextEra Energy (NEE), Visa (V), Cummins (CMI) and Microsoft (MSFT) 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 $30 in YoY dividend gains from Aflac (AFL) due primarily to a big dividend raise late last year. Add another $15 in YoY dividend gains from Pepsico (PEP), north of $14 from both QCOM and Broadcom (AVGO), better than $10 from T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), and more than $9 from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).
Of the stocks that paid me in both September of last year and this year, not one stock posted a payout reduction. I hope for this to be the case every month, but it doesn’t always work out that way.
As for new September dividend payers, I had a pair of them. Enbridge (ENB) debuted with a nice $112.54, while Hershey Co. (HSY) arrived on the scene with a more modest $34.70.
With regard to stocks that no longer pay me a dividend this September, there are 3 of them: Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), V.F. Corp. (VFC), and Whirlpool (WHR). I unloaded all of these during the past year due to their poor performance and their murky outlooks. There was $139.66 in lost dividend income from eliminating these stocks from my Portfolio.
Once again, the majority of my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. However, there was one exception. ENB was only partially reinvested since a portion of the dividend was withheld by my broker for tax purposes.
With regard to the reinvestment that did take place, it added $54.40 of additional forward dividend income to my Portfolio. TROW added more than $7 to this month’s additional forward dividend income total, while I topped $6 from ENB. MAIN and Pepsico (PEP) managed to contribute better than $5 each as well.
As a result of reinvested dividends in September, I dripped more than 15 new shares of stock. This included over 2 new shares of ENB and MAIN, more than 1.5 new shares of TROW and AFL, and over 1 new share of QCOM, SWKS and AVGO.
Dividend Raises
After receiving only two dividend raises last month, the number ratcheted up nicely in September… the number quadrupled!
While the number of raises was relatively large, most of the raise percentages were low, and the couple of double-digit raises I did receive were from a pair of my smaller dividend payers. Unfortunately, both of these facts resulted in less forward dividend income than I might expect from 8 dividend raises.
My first raises of the month arrived during the first week of September. Sadly, none of these raises topped 5%.
Raises got started with a 1.88% hike from Verizon Communications (VZ). This was slightly less than the 1.92% raise from last year, which continued the trend that VZ has offered up for the past 7 years. I wish VZ could figure out a way to get the dividend growth up into the 3%-4% range.
Next was a 4.22% raise from VICI Properties (VICI). This was a step down from the 6.41% boost that VICI provided last year. It was also the smallest raise from VICI since they initiated their dividend back in 2018.
Rounding out the raises from the first week of September was a 0.95% raise from Broadcom (AVGO). This was a rather unexpected raise given that AVGO usually hikes in December. This appears to be AVGO rounding up the dividend to the nearest cent after its 10-for-1 stock split. I still expect AVGO to raise in December.
The token quarterly raise from Realty Income (O) was the next raise announced. It was a 0.19% raise. This was the 4th raise from O in 2024, bumping up the raise percentage for the year to 2.73%. With another token raise in December likely, O will end up short of a 3% raise for the year, which will also trail the overall 3.22% raise provided last year.
My first double-digit raise of the month was provided by Microsoft (MSFT). MSFT boosted its dividend by 10.67%, which bested the 10.29% raise from last year. Unfortunately this led to less than $6 of new forward dividend income due to my small MSFT position and the stock’s low yield.
Up next was the raise from Texas Instruments (TXN). While the raise percentage was modest at 4.62%, the stock is a decent dividend payer for me and the raise led to the biggest boost to my forward dividend income this month from a single stock… $14.74. As has been a theme in 2024, the raise from TXN this year fell short of the raise provided last year (4.84%).
After last year’s sub-1% dividend raise (0.99%) from OGE Energy (OGE), I was hoping for a rebound this time around. However, that didn’t materialize. What materialized this year was an even lower dividend hike of 0.73%. The utility has had a good year in terms of price appreciation. It’s too bad a good dividend raise couldn’t follow.
Finishing out my raises for September was my best raise in percentage terms. It was a 14.73% hike from Accenture (ACN). Sadly, this also failed to top last year’s 15.18% raise. However, the bump it provided to my forward dividend income wasn’t too shabby, as it came to $13.23.
After accounting for all of my September dividend raises, my additional forward dividend income rose by a solid $61.10. I would have hoped that 8 raises could have provided for a bigger boost to my forward dividend income, but I’ll take what I can get.
I’d have to invest $2,444.00 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.50% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to October, the quantity of dividend raises I receive will be dropping relative to September, but I’m expecting a bigger boost to my forward dividend income with the raises coming from some of my larger dividend payers. I expect to hear from Lockheed Martin (LMT) after they didn’t announce in late September. I also expect to hear from RPM International (RPM), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), Visa (V) and AbbVie (ABBV). Two of these expected announcements have already occurred, but I’ll save those details for next month.
Dividends Due To New Investment
For the 2nd straight month, my Portfolio transactions were limited. Once again, there was only a single transaction… a buy.
In this case, it was a new Portfolio position that I added. It starts out as the smallest position in my Portfolio, although not by much.
Details about my new purchase are available in the following post…
The buy resulted in an investment of $3,530.00 into my Portfolio. The substantial 4.62% dividend yield CVX had at the time of my purchase led to me adding $163.00 of additional forward dividend income from the transaction.
With CVX being a new Portfolio position, the number of stocks in my Portfolio rose 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.
In September, I had my 2nd best month of 2024 when it comes to additional forward dividend income. I was well into triple-digit income territory, too. I more than doubled last month’s additional forward dividend income total, and topped last year’s number by more than $100.
Leading my contribution sources this month was Investment of Capital. My lone stock purchase this month (CVX) added a nice chunk of forward dividend income ($163) – the largest amount from this source all year. This was the first time all year that Investment of Capital has paced all my other income sources.
Dividend Raises also provided a solid contribution to my additional forward dividend income in September ($61.10). Meanwhile, Reinvested Dividends didn’t trail by much ($54.40). Unfortunately, the contributions from Reinvested Dividends and Dividend Raises fell a bit short of their respective totals from September 2023.
Still, when I combine my three contribution sources, they added up to $278.50 of additional forward dividend income. This was my best showing since January.
Thanks to an impressive September, I’m ahead of pace again with respect to exceeding last year’s total for additional forward dividend income. I’m hoping to improve upon my best-ever total of $2,224.04 achieved back in 2021. I’ll need to average better than $210.33/mo. during the last quarter to get the job done. I came quite close to achieving this average during Q4 in 2023, so it seems I’ll have a good chance to achieve my goal this year.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
It doesn’t look like it, but I did cross the $2K dividend level in September. I’ll update the max Y-axis number the next time I set a new monthly record.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
I’ve collected almost $15K three-quarters of the way into 2024. There’s still an outside shot at reaching $20K for the year. Also, that nearly $15K almost amounted to what I collected in all of 2022. That’s some good progress over 2 years!
Summary
It was a glorious September, as my Portfolio notched another dividend income record! I tallied nearly $2,019 in dividends this month (crossing $2K for the 2nd time ever) with YoY dividend income growth of 12.49%.
There were 21 different companies that paid me a dividend. The best part… 11 of them came through with a triple-digit dividend. QCOM paid me the most this September ($183.05), while MSFT paid me the least ($13.85).
Reinvested Dividends accounted for more than $54 of additional forward dividend income. Any time I top $50 in a month I’m highly satisfied.
My 6-mo. busy period for Dividend Raises started in September and I was not disappointed. I received 8 Dividend Raises, but the impact to my forward dividend income was just slightly better than $61 due to most of the companies providing the raise being some of my smaller dividend payers, or due to muted raise percentages.
For the 2nd straight month, I only made a single Portfolio transaction. This time, however, I looked outside my Portfolio and found a new stock to bring in. I bought 25 shares of Chevron (CVX), bringing a second Energy company into my Portfolio. The investment was $3,530 and with the hefty 4.62% yield for CVX, I added $163 of forward dividend income from Investment of Capital in September.
Tallying the contributions from all sources, I added exactly $278.50 of forward dividend income to my Portfolio in September. This amazing total for one month put me ahead of pace for my annual forward dividend income goal.
Did you set any dividend income records in this latest quarter-ending month? Did your number of dividend raises significantly increase this month, like it did for me? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.