After tallying November’s dividend income, we’re officially in the homestretch for the year.  Thankfully, my dividend Portfolio had a decent month and I’m now on the precipice of achieving several of my annual goals for 2024.

Let’s see what’s in store for this month’s dividend income report…

Dividend income was solid, topping $1.5K.  How high did the total get though?  The answer will be yours shortly.

While there was Year-over-Year (YoY) dividend growth for November, the growth percentage sagged relative to last month.  That continued a nasty trend over the past few months.  Did I drop to a single-digit growth percentage?  I hope not!  We’ll see soon.

Unfortunately, the number of dividend raises I received in November was below expectation.  It appears that some dividend increases got pushed out to December.  This led to less forward dividend income than I expected for November, too.

Portfolio transactions were few and far between in November… only two moves.  I made a small addition to an existing position, and trimmed a Portfolio holding, too.  Sadly, the two moves left me with a triple-digit forward dividend income decline for the month.  I’ll let you know how bad the number was later in the post.

As for my additional forward dividend income from all my sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital), that was negative, too (thanks to the contribution from Investment of Capital that I just mentioned).  You’ll soon see if that ended up being a triple-digit red number, too.

Despite some of this disappointing news, I think I’ve still got a shot at setting a new annual record for additional forward dividend income.  I’ll outline what needs to get done in the final month of the year to make that happen.

At least the updated dividend charts I share later will show some progress for the month.  As usual, I’ve got monthly and annual dividend charts to show you.

Let’s get this going!  Here are my dividend details for November, 2024, starting with dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

Not too bad… my Portfolio raked in $1,587.65 in dividends this month.  A solid total, for sure.

Sadly, YoY growth declined compared to last month, finishing at 10.30%.  That’s barely in double-digit territory.  I’m not close to my 15% monthly target either.  Let’s hope I can reverse the trend in December and get that percentage moving higher.

A total of 17 companies paid me a dividend in November.  Even better, 7 of the 17 dividend payments reached triple-digits.  Another half dozen topped $50, and all of them were north of $25.  I love it… solid contributions all around!

My top payer was AbbVie (ABBV), which delivered $225.93 all by itself.  Nearly reaching $200 as well was Nexstar Media Group (NXST), which paid me $197.24.  While the middle months have my fewest number of dividend payers, currently my two biggest dividend payers can be found here.  My smallest dividend came from Accenture (ACN), which paid me $25.76.  Monthly payer Realty Income (O) was a little bit further ahead, delivering $28.42.

The increased dividend amounts from CVS Health (CVS), Starbucks (SBUX), NNN REIT (NNN) and Accenture (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 $45 in YoY dividend gains from NXST – primarily due to a stellar dividend increase earlier this year.  I also added another $18 in YoY dividend gains from ABBV, in excess of $12 from Procter & Gamble (PG). and even topped $9 from Fastenal (FAST) despite a trim early this year.

Of the stocks that paid me in both November of last year and this year, only one stock delivered a payout reduction, and that was General Dynamics (GD).  This reduction was due to a trim of the stock that I executed back in January .

With regard to new November dividend payers, there were none.  I haven’t added many new stocks to my Portfolio in 2024 (only 2 so far), so this isn’t a big surprise.

Lastly, I’ve got one stock that no longer pays me a dividend in November: Hormel Foods (HRL).  I purged HRL from my Portfolio this past January.  I wasn’t happy with its lackluster capital appreciation, nor the dwindling dividend growth.  The sale of HRL resulted in $32.79 in lost dividend income.

 

The majority of my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  However, I didn’t reinvest my Verizon Communications (VZ) dividend by choice, as I’m not looking for the position to grow.  Also, ACN 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 $46.45 of additional forward dividend income to my Portfolio.  ABBV and NXST each added around $8 to this month’s additional forward dividend income total, while CVS came close to adding another $5.  Yet another 8 stocks contributed more than $2, too.  Plenty of contributions to be had!

As a result of reinvested dividends in November, I dripped close to 13 new shares of stock.  This included over 1 new share from six different stocks, led by CVS, which added 1.768 shares from dividend reinvestment.

 

Dividend Raises

For the 2nd straight month, the number of dividend payers I had dropped slightly compared to the previous month.  Unlike last month, however, I didn’t see an increase in my forward dividend income despite fewer dividend raises.

Still, it was a good month for raises and the resulting forward dividend income.  I had 5 dividend raises in November and they approached providing triple-digit forward dividend income.

Only one of the raises reached a double-digit percentage.  However, all but one managed to top 5%.  In general, I’m pretty satisfied with the raise percentages.

Things kicked off with a raise from Main Street Capital (MAIN).  It was a 2.04% increase.  This was the 2nd raise of 2024 from MAIN, with the other being a 2.08% hike back in May.  For the year, the total raise percentage was 4.17%.  Unfortunately, this did not live up to the 6.67% total raise from last year.  My forward dividend income increased by $11.23 thanks to this year’s raise.

Next up was my lone double-digit raise of the month.  Automatic Data Processing (ADP) delivered a 10% raise – just made it.  This fell shy of last year’s 12% hike, but I’ll take any raise that’s 10% or more without question.  This raise from ADP provided the most forward dividend income from the group… a solid $32.04 increase.

Nike (NKE) has had some struggles in 2024, but that didn’t really affect the dividend raise the company provided.  NKE announced a solid 8.11% raise around the middle of the month which translated into a $17.66 increase in my forward dividend income.  Last year’s raise percentage was 8.82%, so once again, this was another stock in 2024 that failed to surpass last year’s raise percentage.

My last two raises were both announced on the same day…

Merck & Co. (MRK) provided a 5.19% raise that resulted in $20.23 of additional forward dividend income.  The raise percentage here also failed to match or exceed the one from last year, which was 5.48%.

Meanwhile, McCormick & Co. (MKC) delivered a 7.14% hike that only provided $5.73 of forward dividend income.  The small income boost for me was due to the stock’s small position size in my Portfolio.  MKC was another stock that had their raise percentage in 2024 fall short of the one from 2023 (7.69%).  This was a theme in November, and frankly has been a theme all year.

 

 

After accounting for all of my November dividend raises, my additional forward dividend income rose by a respectable $86.89.  Sure, I came up short of the $100 mark I like to see, but it was a solid month nonetheless, especially considering that only 5 stocks generated this additional income.

I’d have to invest $3,407.45 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.55% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to December, I’m expecting some extra raises relative to November… mainly because some raises didn’t show up in November as expected (AFL, ENB & DIS).  The additional forward dividend income could potentially be my best of the year, as AFL slipping into December would be significant.  Anyway, in addition to the 3 stocks I just mentioned,  I expect to hear from Eastman Chemical (EMN), Amgen (AMGN), CVS Health (CVS), Broadcom (AVGO), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and get the token raise from Realty Income (O).  A raise from American Tower (AMT) is a possibility, too.  Since I’m posting my November report so late, eight of these expected announcements have already occurred, but I’ll save those details for next month.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

In November, I made as many transactions as I made in the past 2 months combined.  That sounds like a lot, right?  Well, it was only 2 transactions in total for November, as there was only one transaction in each of the past two months.

There was one purchase and one sale this month.  The buy incrementally grew one of my smaller Portfolio positions.  The sale was a trim of a stock I’d set a price target on a few months ago.

Details for my two moves are available in the following pair of posts…

 

Recent Buy – HSY again!

Recent Sell – MO

 

The HSY buy resulted in an investment of $516.00 into my Portfolio.  This added $16.44 of additional forward dividend income.  Meanwhile, the MO trim resulted in an effective withdrawal of $2,899.92 from my Portfolio, with an associated reduction of $204 to my forward dividend income.  All totaled, it was a net withdrawal of $2,383.92, and a decrease of $187.56 to my forward dividend income.  This should only be a temporary setback.

Since HSY was already an existing Portfolio position, and the trim didn’t eliminate MO from 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.

 

 

I posted my worst month for additional forward dividend income since August, 2020.  While November’s total (-$54.22) doesn’t look good, it doesn’t feel as bad as it looks.

The negative month from Investment of Capital (-$187.56) was entirely the result of the loss stemming from my MO trim, and I’ve yet to reinvest the sale proceeds.  Assuming I can reinvest into something with a decent yield fairly soon, I should be able to recoup that dividend income in short order.

Monthly totals from the other two sources looked good.  Dividend Raises led the way for the month ($86.89), as it usually does.  Reinvested Dividends posted its very consistent total ($46.45) as is normally the case.

One might believe that the negative November has knocked me off track with regard to setting a new annual record for additional forward dividend income, but I’m still optimistic I can make it if I can find an investment for the MO trim proceeds in December.  The record additional forward dividend income total of $2,224.04 achieved back in 2021 can still be taken down.  I suspect I’ll set a new annual record for Dividend Raises by the end of December, and that I may be able to squeak out a new record for Reinvested Dividends despite having turned off some of my best DRiPs in 2024.  Let’s see what I can get done in December.

 

Progress Charts

The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.

After an anomolous month of March where I had no YoY growth in dividends, I’d say I’m back on track after an 8th consecutive month of YoY growth in November.

 

 

On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.

I exceeded 2023’s dividend total late this month.  So, it’s all gravy in December, 2024.  Time to establish a new best annual total.  Sadly, I think I’m going to come up shy of $20K in dividends for the year.  At least I’ll get to adjust my Y-axis scale higher by next month’s dividend report.

 

 

Summary

Dividend income rolled in at roughly $1,588 for November.  This was a solid total, no doubt.  However, YoY dividend income growth of 10.3% continued to drift lower by the month, and is coming close to falling out of double-digit territory.

November saw 17 companies pay me during the month.  A terrific 7 of them provided north of $100, while 1 of those was actually over $200.  ABBV delivered the most dividend income in November (a stellar $225.93), while ACN provided the least (a not too shabby $25.76).

Better than $46 of additional forward dividend income came from Reinvested Dividends, despite zero reinvestment of my VZ dividend.

I collected only 5 Dividend Raises in November, as 3 other raises I was expecting to realize during the month never materialized.  Only ADP was able to deliver a dividend raise with a double-digit percentage, but most other raises at least topped 5%.  My forward dividend income from all raises approached $87.

I managed a couple of Portfolio transactions in November.  I bought 3 shares of HSY, just as I did in October.  I also trimmed my MO position (selling 50 shares) after the stock price crossed my $58 target level.  This allowed me to sell my most expensive shares for a tiny profit, and it reduced the dividend weighting that MO has in my Portfolio.  The net investment of the two transactions turned out to be -$2,383.92, with my forward dividend income decreasing significantly – by $187.56.

Tallying the contributions from all sources, I lost more than $54 of forward dividend income in my Portfolio in November.  This was my worst month for additional forward dividend income in 2024, and my worst since August 2020.  Still, I think I’ve got a chance to establish a new annual record for additional forward dividend income if I can have a good December.

Have you got some of your annual goals in sight with only one month to go in 2024?  What are you hoping to accomplish inside your portfolio in the final month of 2024?  Please share in the Comments!

I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.