Hey Everyone!  Welcome to my first post of 2025.  I wanted to get this out the last week of 2024, but other posts took priority.

Anyway, for this first effort, I’m back with one of my annual posts… a summary of my dividend raises for the year (2024 in this case).  There’s no doubt my Portfolio is much better thanks to these dividend raises.  More than reinvesting dividends or new capital investment, nothing advances my forward dividend income like a dividend raise.

In this post I’ll start with a lovely table showing my total raise percentages for the stocks in my Portfolio.  Then, I’ll note which Portfolio companies offered a larger raise in 2024 than in 2023.  I’ll also provide my thoughts on some of the raise percentages.

Let’s do this!

In the rightmost column, if you see a ‘+’ that means that this year’s dividend raise is larger than the one I received from the same stock last year.  A ‘*’ means that the stock was new to my Portfolio in 2024, or that I don’t have a “received raise percentage” from 2023 to compare to.  I right-justified the ‘*’ to make it easier to see relative to the ‘+’.

Also, the ‘#’ column indicates the total number of raises received in 2024 to make up that Total Raise percentage I listed.

 

 

Dividend raises were pretty good in 2024, but they didn’t seem to reach the same level as those from the previous two years.  You can see in my table that only 11 of my holdings increased their dividend raise percentage relative to 2023 (as noted by the ‘+’ in the rightmost column).

I did have a couple of stocks provide a raise of 20% or more (which I consider ‘stellar’).  This is the same number of stocks topping 20% as last year.  The first was The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) with a 66.67% hike – delivered via a pair of raises.  It’s hard to get too excited about this one, as DIS still hasn’t returned its dividend to the level at which it was prior to its dividend suspension at the onset of the pandemic.  The other 20%+ raise came from Nexstar Media Group (NXST).  NXST provided a raise of 25.19%.  Make it 11 consecutive years now that NXST has provided a raise of 20% or more… incredible!  Amazingly, neither of the raises from DIS or NXST was an increase in percentage compared to 2023.

In the range of 15.00% to 19.99% (which I consider ‘outstanding’), there were 2 stocks – down from 3 in 2023.  After a modest raise in 2023, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) hiked their dividend twice in 2024, totaling a 19.05% increase.  After a freeze in 2022, it was nice to see JPM resume increases in 2023, then play a little catch-up in 2024.  The other raise was a 16% boost from Aflac (AFL).  This didn’t quite measure up to the 19.05% raise from 2023, but I won’t complain.  AFL was a repeat participant in this range.

With respect to the 10% to 14.99% range (which I consider ‘great’), I had 11 stocks land here – up from 8 in 2023.  Three of them provided better raises than in 2023.  The most surprising one was probably RPM International (RPM).  RPM doesn’t normally provide double-digits dividend raises, but their 10.87% hike met that criteria.  Last year’s 9.52% raise almost did the trick, too.  Impressive!  Broadcom (AVGO), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Fastenal (FAST), Microsoft (MSFT), NextEra Energy (NEE), Amdocs Ltd. (DOX) and Automatic Data Processing (ADP) were repeat participants in this range.

Adding up all the double-digit raises for 2024, I collected 15 of them, which is 2 more than I notched last year and equivalent to the amount from 2022.  More than 25% of my Portfolio stocks managed a double-digit raise.  I’ll take that!

In the range of 7.00% to 9.99% (which I consider ‘good’), I had 9 stocks – down from 13 in 2023.  Four of those nine stocks gave raises that exceeded their ones from the previous year.  FedEx (FDX), Caterpillar (CAT), Cummins (CMI), Nike (NKE), McCormick & Co (MKC) and Starbucks (SBUX) were repeat participants in this range.  This is now 5 years in a row in this range for SBUX, and 4 years in a row for CAT.  It’s hard not to like this consistency when the dividend growth rate exceeds inflation.

In the range of 4.00% to 6.99% (which I consider ‘average’), I had 14 stocks –  down from 16 in 2023.  Only three of the fourteen companies in this group increased their raise percentage relative to 2023.  Qualcomm (QCOM), AbbVie (ABBV), Amgen (AMGN), Merck & Co. (MRK), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Texas Instruments (TXN), Lowe’s Companies (LOW), VICI Properites (VICI), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Main Street Capital (MAIN) and Altria Group (MO) were repeat participants in this range for 2024.  Unfortunately, Quest Diagnostics (DGX) and Comcast (CMCSA) dropped into this range after providing better raises last year.  However, Procter & Gamble (PG) moved up into this range after it posted a larger raise this year (6.99%) compared to 2023 (3.00%).

In the range of 0%+ to 3.99% (which I consider ‘disappointing’) were 15 stocks – up from 13 in 2023.  Eleven stocks remained in this range from 2023.  These stocks included Enbridge (ENB), Realty Income (O), NNN REIT (NNN), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Eastman Chemical (EMN), BlackRock (BLK), Verizon Communications (VZ), Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), Medtronic (MDT) and OGE Energy (OGE).  Three stocks fell into this lower range compared to last year.  This included Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), and Air Products & Chemicals (APD).  The drops from SWKS and APD were noteworthy.  SWKS went from a 9.68% raise in 2023 to a 2.94% hike in 2024.  Meanwhile, APD went from an 8.02% boost in 2023 to a 1.14% increase in 2024.  Union Pacific (UNP) moved up into this range with its 3.08% raise in 2024 after having a frozen dividend in 2023.

Speaking of frozen dividends, I had 3 of them in 2024: CVS Health (CVS), Omnicom Group (OMC) and UGI Corp (UGI).  This is the same number of stocks that had frozen dividends in my Portfolio last year, too.  Only OMC is a repeat offender though.  This is three years running that OMC has failed to raise its dividend… I’ve already starting looking for a replacement stock.  CVS went from a 9.92% raise in 2023 to 0% in 2024.  The company is fighting multiple headwinds at the moment, so the freeze isn’t really a surprise, but it’s still disappointing.  The freeze from UGI ended what had been a 36-year dividend growth streak.  UGI needs to figure out what it’s doing with its propane business before dividend growth resumes.  I don’t expect a raise in 2025 either.

I was a bit unsure about how I wanted to categorize American Tower (AMT).  AMT had been announcing dividend raises on a quarterly basis in recent years.  It announced a dividend change early in 2024, which when compared to the previous quarterly dividend, looked like a dividend cut.  However, despite the dividend ‘cut’, the annual raise percentage actually come out to an increase of 3.96%.  Anyway, I left AMT showing as a cut in my table.

 

A few other notes…

I list 57 companies in the table above, however, there are currently 59 holdings in my Portfolio.  One holding not shown is Chevron (CVX), which raised their dividend (7.95%) prior to me establishing my position in September 2024.  The other holding (actually a closed-end fund, not a stock) is one that I established very late in 2024 – DNP Select Income Fund (DNP).  Thus, I didn’t really have a chance for a dividend raise (although DNP hasn’t raised their dividend in over a decade, so I’ll plan on DNP having the word ‘frozen’ next to it in next year’s table).

If I eliminated a stock from my Portfolio during 2024, it’s not included in the table above.  However, if there was a dividend raise for one of them prior to my sale, I note it below (next to the company name).  Here are the 3 positions that exited my Portfolio this year, in the order in which they departed.

• Hormel Foods (HRL)
• Best Buy (BBY)
• Whirlpool (WHR)

 

There you have it… my dividend raise summary for 2024.  I’m hoping for better dividend growth in 2025 after what felt like a lackluster 2024.  As noted at the beginning, dividend raises are the primary contributor to my forward dividend income added throughout the year, so nice growth here certainly benefits my Portfolio.

Tell me about your dividend raises for 2024!  Did any of them blow away your expectations?  Any big disappointments or cuts?