A good amount of dividends rolled in during February, providing me with some much needed income to use for living expenses.

I’d say that 2026 is off to a good start, as I’ve topped $1.8K in both months to begin the year.  Coupled with good performance from my Portfolio overall, what’s not to like.

 

Here’s a preview of this month’s dividend income report…

Dividend income was nearly $1.9K… a record for any non-quarter-ending month of mine.  However, YoY growth came up well short of my monthly 15% target.

Once again, no dividends were reinvested, so I didn’t produce any additional forward dividend income from this source.

Dividend raises were pretty good.  Six stocks provided a dividend boost, with one of them delivering a double-digit raise percentage.  All together the group of raises managed to provide triple-digit forward dividend income, even though it failed to equal last month’s total.

Unlike last month, there were some Portfolio transactions in February.  There were six total moves, including two stocks that were purged, and one new one that was introduced to my Portfolio.  In all, the moves resulted in a small reduction in my additional forward dividend income.

The total additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) was limited to just the last two sources.  Sadly, I failed to keep my triple-digit additional forward dividend income streak going, as February just missed out on providing a triple-digit total.

Needless to say, I’ve got updated progress charts that I’ll provide, too.

Let’s get to the dividend details for February 2026, starting with my dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

My February dividend total looks good to me!  My Portfolio raked in almost $1.9K in dividends, $1,899.12 to be exact.  I’ll take that, as it’s my best non-quarter-ending month ever.

However, my monthly YoY dividend growth didn’t come close to my 15% target, as it finished at 8.28%.  I’ll probably need to lower my target to something below 10% this year since I’m no longer reinvesting dividends, nor investing new capital.

I had 18 companies pay me a dividend this month.  That means I averaged better than $100 for each dividend payer.  I like it!  Just like last month, there were 7 triple-digit dividend payers in February.  All dividends paid this month exceeded $27, and only 3 were less than $50.

AbbVie (ABBV) delivered my largest dividend of the month, which was a staggering $262.91.  The $228.65 from Nexstar Media Group (NXST) wasn’t too shabby either.  As for my smallest dividend, that was $27.91 from Main Street Capital (MAIN).  Its fellow monthly payer, Realty Income (O), was just above that at $31.10.

The increased dividend amounts from Texas Instruments (TXN), NNN REIT (NNN) and Accenture (ACN) were helped by one or more purchases over the past year.

Increased YoY amounts for all other companies were the result of dividend increases and reinvested dividends over the past year.  I added more than $21 in YoY dividend gains from ABBV, in excess of $19 from Fastenal (FAST), north of $11 from Procter & Gamble (PG), and over $9 from NXST.

Of the February dividend payers that paid me both last year and this year, just a single one had a payout reduction – Main Street Capital (MAIN).  I trimmed MAIN last July due to the stock looking overvalued to me and that resulted in the dividend dip.

As for new dividend payers in February, there were 2 of them.  Both were closed-end funds (CEFs): PIMCO Corporate and Income Strategy Fund (PCN) and BlackRock Health Sciences Trust (BME), delivering $132.54 and $61.27, respectively.

Three stocks no longer paid me a dividend this February.  These included two Healthcare stocks in CVS Health (CVS) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), as well as one REIT, American Tower (AMT).  I gave up a $101.56 quarterly dividend from CVS, $66.40 from BMY, and $34.03 from AMT.  None of the stocks performed very well for me, so I sold them to invest elsewhere.

 

Reinvested Dividends

For just my 2nd month in a row, no dividends got automatically reinvested into the stocks that paid them.  I’m using the dividends to cover some of my monthly living expenses.

Unfortunately, this means that $0.00 of additional forward dividend income was generated due to reinvested dividends.

 

Dividend Raises

February proved to be another good month for dividend raises for me.  February delivered 6 dividend raises for my Portfolio.  Even better, one of those raises reached a double-digit percentage… although just barely.

Most raises came in as expected, however, a couple of companies chose to hold their dividend steady, leading to a little less additional forward dividend income than I hoped.

Despite this, I still managed to notch a triple-digit additional forward dividend income total.

 

Somewhat surprisingly, all of my dividend raises arrived in the first half of the month.

My first dividend raise for February came from Pepsico (PEP).  The company boosted their dividend by a decent, but not exciting, 4.04%.  On a long-term basis, PEP usually averages a 7% hike, so this year’s bump proved underwhelming.  The raise also failed to live up to last year’s 4.98% hike.  Still, with PEP being one of my better dividend payers, the raise translated into a healthy $28.78 of additional forward dividend income.

I wasn’t sure I was going to get my next raise, which came from Hershey Co. (HSY).  The last time HSY raised their dividend was two years ago (so technically a dividend freeze was in effect).  Yet, HSY came through with a 5.99% raise, hopefully starting a new annual dividend raise streak.  Even though HSY isn’t a big dividend payer for me, the raise was just enough to add at least $10 to my additional forward dividend income – $10.10 to be exact.

Next up was a small dividend raise from T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) – that makes it 4 years in a row now for a minor increase.  The 2.36% raise fell short of the 2.42% boost provided last year.  The dividend hike still added $17.70 to my additional forward dividend income though since TROW is one of my largest dividend payers.

Quest Diagnostics (DGX) provided my 2nd-best raise of the month, a 7.5% raise.  This is roughly on par, or slightly above, what DGX has provided on average over the years.  This year’s raise percentage topped last year’s increase of 6.67%, so that was nice to see.  The raise added $14.62 to my forward dividend income.

Raising their dividend by one cent per share for the 6th year in a row was Cisco Systems (CSCO).  This translated into a disappointing 2.44% raise which failed to match the 2.50% raise provided last year.  I long for the days when CSCO was providing double-digit raises on an annual basis.  This raise bumped my additional forward dividend income by just $5.46, my lowest amount of the month.

My last raise of the month was my best from both a raise percentage perspective, and with regard to providing the biggest increase to my additional forward dividend income.  NextEra Energy (NEE) delivered a 10.01% raise, boosting my forward dividend income by a solid $29.85.  The raise was ever so slightly better than the 10.00% raise given by NEE last year.  Moving forward (at least for the next 2 years), I believe NEE is planning on raises around the 6% level, so I’ll have to lower my annual expectation.

The two stocks that I expected a dividend raise from in February, but which instead chose to hold their dividend steady, were Meta Platforms (META) and Realty Income (O).  META has only been paying a dividend for a couple of years, so there’s not much of a track record, but I was surprised by the dividend freeze.  The company certainly has cash on hand to pay a larger dividend.  As for O, I was expecting February would be the biggest of their 5 or so raises they tend to deliver each year.  Perhaps it will come later in the year.

 

 

After accounting for all my February dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by a very acceptable $106.51.  This total just exceeded the $99.65 from last year.  It was also my best February total since 2022.

I’d have to invest $4,049.81 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.63% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to March, I’m expecting a drop to only 3 dividend raises.  Those raise announcements should come from General Dynamics (GD), Qualcomm (QCOM) and Realty Income (O), with the last one being the token quarterly raise from O.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

After a quiet January with no Portfolio transactions, things heated up a bit in February.  I made a total of 6 moves in two different groups.

In the first group, I eliminated FedEx (FDX), then turned around and used most of the sales proceeds to add to my Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Microsoft (MSFT) and Intuit (INTU) positions.  I was able to add some forward dividend income with this group of transactions.

A couple of days later, I finished things off when I purged my Salesforce (CRM) position, then used the sales proceeds to initiate a position in NVIDIA (NVDA).  Unfortunately, these moves came with a reduction in my forward dividend income that more than offset what I gained with the first set of moves.

Details for my two groups of moves can be found in the following pair of posts…

 

Recent Transactions – FDX, ADP, MSFT, INTU

Recent Transactions – CRM & NVDA

 

My transactions resulted in a net withdrawal of $418.95 from my Portfolio (as I held back some of the sales proceeds to help pay capital gains taxes).  My forward dividend income decreased by a minor $13.02 as a result of all the moves.

After FDX & CRM were eliminated from my Portfolio, but NVDA was added, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio settled at 57.

 

Tallying Up The Additional Forward Dividend Income

In 2026, I will continue tracking my additional forward dividend income generated each month from the trifecta of sources: reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and new capital investment.  However, expect nearly all the action to be from dividend raises.

I’ll show 2025 totals as well, so that we can compare as the year progresses.

 

 

In February, my 14-month streak of having a triple-digit addition to my forward dividend income came to an end.  Dividend Raises provided enough ($106.51) to get me there, but my Investment of Capital (-$13.02) set me back some, knocking my total down to double-digit territory.  Accounting for all the sources, I gained $93.49 of additional forward dividend income.

I was happy to see Dividend Raises beat out their total from last February ($99.65), even though it didn’t match their total from last month ($145.46).  The negative total from Investment of Capital was my first loss from that source since November, 2024.

 

Progress Charts

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

Nice YoY gains are visible for the first two months of 2026.  I expect a similar result for March.

 

 

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

It only took 2 months in 2026 to best my dividend total from all of 2015… and by more than $1K at that!

 

 

Summary

My Portfolio collected a handsome $1,899.12 in dividends in February.  YoY growth wasn’t as high as I’d hoped though, as it came in at 8.28%.

I received 18 dividend payments, all of which topped $27 – I like that!  Just like last month, seven of my dividend payments reached the triple-digit level.  A $262.91 dividend from ABBV led the way.

My Portfolio received 6 dividend raises in February.  One of my raises managed to top 10% – the one from NEE barely made it.  That same raise also provided the largest bump to my forward dividend income at nearly $30.  All the raises combined added more than $106 in forward dividend income.

For the second month running, there was no additional forward dividend income resulting from reinvested dividends.  That’s because I stopped reinvesting dividends at the beginning of the year to cover some of my living expenses,

I did make some Portfolio moves in February.  I sold two stocks (FDX & CRM, both of which were eliminated from my Portfolio) and bought 4 stocks – adding to three existing positions (ADP, MSFT & INTU) and establishing a new one (NVDA).  The outcome of the moves was a net withdrawal from my Portfolio of almost $419, and the loss of a bit over $13 in forward dividend income.

Tallying the contributions from all sources (really just two in February), over $93 of forward dividend income was added to my Portfolio during the month.

 

Are your portfolio dividends dominated by just a few of your positions?  Are you good with that, or is it something you wish to change?  Please share in the Comments!

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