The stock market notched a rebound in May, and my Portfolio value was definitely better for it. The stock market is now attempting to recover all its losses after peaking in February.
Perhaps an even better feeling than seeing green in the markets is watching my dividend income continue to roll in. I’m always excited to calculate what I can expect for the month and then see those dollars predictably show up in my account.
Unfortunately, the month of May wasn’t as predicable as I’d hoped. Instead, it provided what I expect will be my lowest monthly dividend total for 2025. This was due to one of those pesky dividend payment timing changes, from one of my largest dividend payers, no less. One of my usual late May dividends got pushed out to early June. This will be great for next month, but it’s a negative for May.
Other than that, I would say everything else went according to plan. Let’s get a preview of what happened in my Portfolio in May…
Monthly dividend income climbed over $1.4K in May. However, it didn’t reach $1.5K, which is the level I was hoping to exceed each month in 2025. Oh well.
Did the reduction result in negative Year-over-Year (YoY) growth for May? I’ll let you know shortly.
The majority of my dividends got reinvested in the holdings that paid them. This resulted in another $50+ being added to my forward dividend income.
Dividend raises for my Portfolio remained low in quantity and quality, as I’m in the middle of my slowest part of the year in this respect. Was the additional forward dividend income for May still good though? I’ll share the final numbers soon, but given that no raise could top 5%, I suspect you already know how it turned out.
I didn’t trade much at all in May… just a pair of moves, one purchase, one sale. Thus, no significant additional forward dividend income was generated from transactions this month. However, I’ll still tally it up for you in a bit.
So, while additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) was a bit muted in May, there was still progress. The question is, did I manage to put together a triple-digit month again in May? That answer is not too far away.
I’ve got updated progress charts to share with you as well.
Let’s get to the details, and determine the actual totals for May 2025, starting with my dividend income…
Dividend Income
My Portfolio collected a solid $1,419.65 in dividends this May. However, this fell short of last May’s total of $1,529.92 by more than $100.
Of course, this resulted in negative YoY dividend growth. It was a sad -7.21% number that was posted. Needless to say, I didn’t hit my monthly 15% YoY growth target.
May’s dividend income and YoY growth was impacted by my Nexstar Media Group (NXST) dividend not being paid in late May, but it rather slipping out to the first days of June. This should result in an outstanding dividend total next month, but left May with a subpar number. Had NXST paid in May, my dividend total for May would have been $1,641.59, which would have resulted in YoY growth of 7.30%. Sure, the timing of the payment doesn’t affect my annual numbers, but it does result in a monthly impact that has to be explained.
A total of 16 companies paid me a dividend in May. Even better, five of these companies delivered a triple-digit dividend to my Portfolio during the month. My remaining payments were solid, as they all topped $45 except for two of them.
AbbVie (ABBV) provided my largest dividend in May, coming in at $243.28. This was my largest regular dividend payment ever. Realty Income (O) was my smallest dividend payer for the month, but even its $29.80 dividend felt hefty. Accenture (ACN) wasn’t too far ahead of O with a dividend of $30.40.
The increased dividend amounts from Starbucks (SBUX), NNN REIT (NNN) 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 tacked on more than $21 in YoY dividend gains from ABBV. I added more than $19 from Fastenal (FAST), too. Throw in over $10 added from Procter & Gamble (PG) as well.
Of the May stocks that paid me both last year and this year, none of them had a payout reduction. I always like to see that.
As for new dividend payers in May, there were a pair. Both are closed-end funds. Both CEFs debuted with decent distributions given their high yields. DNP Select Income Fund (DNP) paid $66.59 while BlackRock Health Sciences Trust (BME) delivered $58.39.
Three stocks no longer paid me a dividend this May. First was the dividend from NXST, which was $193.23. As I discussed earlier, the loss was related to the timing of their dividend payment, which moved from May to June this year. The absence of the CVS Health (CVS) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) dividends, which were $98.13 and $61.94, respectively, resulted from me purging the stocks from my Portfolio earlier this year. For CVS, I’d become leery of their near-term earnings prospects & dividend growth. As for BMY, they’d been going sideways for years (ever since their Celgene acquisition it seems), and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Nearly all my dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them. The only exception was the partial dividend reinvestment of Accenture (ACN) due to a portion of the dividend being withheld for foreign tax purposes. The result of all the dividend reinvestment that did take place was an additional $53.41 of forward dividend income. I was happy to exceed that $50 level again in May.
The reinvestment of my ABBV dividend accounted for more than $9 of the forward dividend income total. The Verizon Communications (VZ) dividend reinvestment added nearly $7. Each of my two CEFs, DNP & BME, added over $5 to the total. PG also included another $4 in the final amount. There were plenty of other good contributions, too.
As a result of May’s reinvested dividends, I dripped well over 22 new shares of stock. DNP accounted for nearly 7 shares all by itself in May. FAST dripped a little more than 3.5 shares while VZ dripped just north of 2.5 shares. Four more holdings dripped more than 1 share, too.
Dividend Raises
At the end of last month I projected that I’d receive 4 dividend raises in May, and that’s exactly what I got. There were no real surprises to speak of.
The 4 dividend raises equaled the amount I got last month. However, this time around the additional forward dividend income was less.
That’s because the raise percentages were all less than 5%. In fact, only one of them came in above 4%. It was tough sledding on the dividend raise front.
Only one raise was announced in the first half of May, and that came from Main Street Capital (MAIN). MAIN bumped up their regular dividend by 2.00%. This percentage was a tad below the 2.08% raise from last year. The corresponding boost to my forward dividend income was $11.71.
Medtronic (MDT) provided my next dividend raise. It was a 1.43% hike that resulted in just a $2.83 increase in my forward dividend income. That’s what a small raise from a small dividend payer looks like. This raise fell short of the 1.45% raise that MDT provided in 2024.
I was a bit surprised to hear of an announced raise from Flowers Foods (FLO). The company is expected to post negative growth in 2025, and minimal growth in the two years that follow. Yet, FLO raised their dividend by 3.13%, which increased my forward dividend income by $6.39. This is the 10th year in a row that YoY dividend growth has decreased for FLO.
Lastly, there was the 4.35% dividend raise from Lowe’s Companies (LOW). This was my largest raise of the month, on both a percentage basis, and with respect to it being the biggest bump to my forward dividend income in May… $20.56. LOW offered up a 4.55% raise last year, so once again a stock in my Portfolio sees a reduction in its raise percentage for 2025 compared to 2024.
After accounting for all my May dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by $41.49. LOW accounted for nearly half of this amount by itself. It wasn’t the best of months, but there was progress in increasing that forward dividend income.
I’d have to invest $1,497.83 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.77% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to June, another 4 dividend raises appear to be on tap. I expect to hear from UnitedHealth Group (UNH), FedEx (FDX), Caterpillar (CAT), and receive the token raise from Realty Income (O). One of these companies has already announced its dividend raise this month, but I’ll save that for next month’s report.
Dividends Due To New Investment
While stock market activity increased during May, that wasn’t the case in my Portfolio. My transactions were limited, as I wasn’t feeling the need to make any moves.
In the end, I made just a pair of moves… 1 buy, 1 sell. The sale was a single share of Microsoft (MSFT). I unloaded my most expensive share.
As for the buy, I bought a couple of shares of UnitedHealth Group (UNH) considering it had declined so much this year. Unfortunately, I was a bit premature in my purchase and could have bought at an even lower price had I waited some.
Details for my two transactions can be found in this single post…
Recent Transactions – MSFT & UNH
My transactions resulted in a net investment of $331.00 into my Portfolio, with my forward dividend income rising by $13.48. This translated to an effective yield of 4.07% for the pair of trades.
With no Portfolio positions being opened or closed with either of the transactions, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio remained at 59.
Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income
In 2025, 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 2024 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.
My additional forward dividend income monthly total has been dwindling each month thus far in 2025, but I’m still in triple-digit territory, even for May. However, this month was the first time I failed to exceed last year’s monthly total.
Accounting for all the sources, I added $108.38 of additional forward dividend income in May. This failed to reach the $110.80 I posted last year. I managed to exceed last year’s total in both Reinvested Dividends and Dividend Raises, but failed to do so in Investment of Capital.
For the first time all year, Reinvested Dividends was my source providing the most additional forward dividend income. It provided $53.41, and was my only source to top $50 in May.
Dividend Raises was my next best source in May, delivering $41.49 in additional forward dividend income. This total was slightly better than what the source totaled in May of last year.
Bringing up the rear with regard to additional dividend income from any of my sources was Investment of Capital. The $13.48 generated was my smallest in this category all year, and it failed to top the $22 I had from this source in May, 2024.
Investment of Capital and Reinvested Dividends are well on pace to exceed the additional forward dividend income they generated last year. However, I’m slightly behind last year’s pace in Dividend Raises. This is not shocking given that dividend raise percentages in 2025 are failing to live up the those from 2024. The good news is that as a group, my 3 sources have put my Portfolio more that half way to reaching last year’s total, and I still have 7 months remaining to top the record $2,441.98 in additional forward dividend income that I posted in 2024.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
It’s easy to see the impact that the Nexstar Media Group (NXST) dividend shifting out of May (and into June) had. It left this May failing to exceed last year’s May dividend total. That’s too bad because I enjoy seeing the monthly totals consistently go up year after year, and it didn’t happen this month.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
It only took 5 months in 2025 to exceed my dividend total for all of 2018. That’s some serious progress.
Summary
For the 2nd consecutive month, my dividend results were skewed by a shifted dividend payment between last year and this year. This time it was NXST that shifted (from May to June), which resulted in a depressed total for May. However, next month will be even better than usual since the dividend will show up there.
May’s dividend total finished at $1,419.65. Sadly, this meant YoY growth ended negative… -7.21%.
There were only 16 dividend payments for my Portfolio in May. This is the fewest I’ve had in many months. Five of those dividend payments were large enough to reach triple-digits, with my largest-ever regular dividend of $243.28, from AbbVie (ABBV), leading the way.
Reinvested Dividends was my source providing the most additional forward dividend income in May. This doesn’t usually happen, but it did this month. The source finished with more than $53, allowing my streak of $50+ to reach 4 straight months.
My Portfolio received only 4 Dividend Raises in May, just as expected. Unfortunately, none of the dividend raises reached 5%, so additional forward dividend income for this source was smaller, at a little more than $41.
Portfolio transactions were minimal in May. I only made a pair of moves in all – 1 buy and 1 sale. I sold my most expensive share of MSFT and bought a couple of shares of UNH. Both of these stocks were existing holdings, thus no stocks joined or left my Portfolio in May. The transactions resulted in a net investment into my Portfolio of exactly $331. My forward dividend income climbed by more than $13 as a result of the transactions.
Tallying the contributions from all sources, over $108 of forward dividend income was added to my Portfolio in May. I am looking good for eclipsing my record additional forward dividend income total that was set last year. I’m already more than halfway home in amount even though I have another month before reaching the halfway point in time.
What stood out in your portfolio when you tallied your May dividend income? Income total? YoY growth? Number of dividend raises? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.