March proved to be an ugly month for stock performance, punishing my overall Portfolio value, but at least my dividends kept piling up as usual. These days I’m using my dividends for living expenses so it’s nice that the amount is quite predictable.
Quarter-ending months are usually some of the best months for dividend income and that was the case for me in March. I happily raked in a significant amount of $$$.
Here’s a preview of this month’s dividend income report…
Dividend income topped $2.5K. Was it enough to be a record amount? The answer is coming soon. YoY growth fell noticeably short of my new monthly 10% target though, but it wasn’t too bad. That percentage will be shared shortly.
With no dividends being reinvested (since I used the dividends for living expenses), I once again didn’t produce any additional forward dividend income from this source.
My quantity of dividend raises were limited in March. I’ve reached the beginning of the 6-month window where my number of monthly dividend raises are few. Only three stocks provided a dividend hike for me in March, and none of them sniffed a double-digit raise percentage. Not only did I fail to reach triple-digit forward dividend income, I didn’t come close to getting there either.
For a second straight month, I managed to execute a few Portfolio transactions. There were four total moves, starting with a trim. Then a week later I re-invested all the sale proceeds, and a bit of cash, into three existing Portfolio positions. The collection of moves resulted in a small increase to 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 again to just Dividend Raises and Investment of Capital. Unfortunately, for a second consecutive month, I failed to post triple-digit additional forward dividend income. Even worse, my total has been declining.
My updated progress charts still show good monthly and annual progress though. I’ll share those near the end of this post.
Wait no longer… here are the dividend details for March 2026, starting with my dividend income…
Dividend Income
My March dividend total was my 2nd-best monthly total ever! My Portfolio surpassed $2.5K in dividends, finishing at $2,569.52. That missed my record amount of $2,645.91 set last June.
My monthly YoY dividend growth slumped again this month, coming in at 6.66%… not really close to my new 10% target.
I had 26 companies pay me a dividend this month. Payments ran the gamut from $213.36 from Aflac (AFL), to $5.26 from Alphabet (GOOG). I averaged almost $100 for each dividend payer I had – sweet! Eleven of my dividend payers delivered a triple-digit dividend in March… impressive. Short of the two sub-$10 dividends I had, all dividends paid this month exceeded $20, and 20 of the 26 payments were north of $50.
The increased dividend amounts from NextEra Energy (NEE), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), BlackRock Health Sciences Trust (BME) and Microsoft (MSFT) 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 $19 in YoY dividend gains from Broadcom (AVGO), exceeded $15 from Enbridge (ENB), topped $14 from both AFL and BlackRock (BLK), and added north of $11 from Qualcomm (QCOM), T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) and Pepsico (PEP). Throw in nearly $10 from Chevron (CVX) and over $8 from Visa (V), and the contributions kept piling up.
Of the March dividend payers that paid me both last year and this year, three of them had a payout reduction. This included Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), Main Street Capital (MAIN) and Hershey Co. (HSY). I trimmed SWKS when it peaked north of $80 last September. I trimmed MAIN last July due to the stock looking overvalued to me. I also trimmed HSY last July after I averaged down my cost basis and then the stock recovered.
As for new dividend payers in March, there were three of them. The one arriving with the most income was a closed-end fund (CEF): PIMCO Corporate and Income Strategy Fund (PCN), delivering $132.54. Arriving with much smaller dividends were Meta Platforms (META) and Alphabet (GOOG), with payments of $8.41 and $5.26, respectively.
Two stocks no longer paid me a dividend this March. Those stocks were Pinnacle West Capital (PNW) and Flowers Foods (FLO). About 1 year ago, I sold PNW to invest further in Chevron (CVX). I was happy with PNW, but just wanted to expand my Energy weighting. I sold FLO last July due to its poor performance and its deteriorating dividend safety rating. I let go of a $60.73 dividend with my PNW sale, and a $50.40 dividend with the FLO sale.
Reinvested Dividends
For the 3rd 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 meant that $0.00 of additional forward dividend income was generated due to reinvested dividends.
Dividend Raises
Sadly, I’ve reached the start of time of the year when fewer dividend raises come my way on a monthly basis. Instead of receiving maybe 5 to 7 raises in a month, it’ll be more like 3 to 4. This means a smaller boost to my additional forward dividend income as well.
March delivered just 3 dividend raises for me. Even worse, only one of them reached 6%.
All the raises I got were from the companies I expected. However, I was a bit disappointed by one of the raise percentages.
Needless to say, given the above, I didn’t come close to securing a triple-digit additional forward dividend income total.
All the raises were announced around the middle third of the month.
General Dynmaics (GD) provided my first dividend raise for March, which also happened to be my best one from a raise percentage perspective. The company boosted their dividend 6%. This is pretty much in line with its other raises over the past 5 years. On a bright note, this 6% raise topped GD’s 5.63% hike from last year. The raise translated to $11.28 of additional forward dividend income.
Next up for raises was the token quarterly dividend raise from Realty Income (O). The 0.19% raise matched previous token raises provided over the past few years. Unfortunately, this only boosted my additional forward dividend income by $0.69.
My last dividend raise of March came from one of my largest dividend payers – Qualcomm (QCOM). A nice hike from a big payer could really prove helpful to boosting my dividend income. Yet, the big raise percentage didn’t come. QCOM only managed a 3.37% raise, well shy of the 4.71% boost from last year. This was also a 4th straight year for QCOM with a declining raise percentage. At least the raise resulted in $26.52 of additional forward dividend income, my largest individual increase for March.
After accounting for all my March dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by $38.49. This total didn’t approach the $105.90 from March of last year, or the $106.51 from last month. Just lackluster results as far as dividend raises were concerned this month.
I’d have to invest $1,146.99 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.66% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.
Looking ahead to April, dividend raises will remain limited, as I expect just 3 more. Those raise announcements should come from Procter & Gamble (PG), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Alphabet (GOOG). PG & JNJ are a couple of my bigger dividend payers, so I hope they can surprise me with bigger-than-expected raise percentages. JNJ has had a good year, so perhaps they provide my best chance.
Dividends Due To New Investment
For a 2nd straight month, I executed a few Portfolio transactions. In March, I managed to make 4 moves, comprised of 1 trim and 3 buys of existing holdings.
I started things off by trimming my Verizon Communications (VZ) position. The stock had been on a recent tear, breaking above $46 after trading in the $37-$46 range for more than 2 years. So, I unloaded my most expensive shares ($51), something I’d been wanting to do for a while after averaging down my cost basis over the past few years.
I then took my sales proceeds, added a bit of cash, and started buying. With my first buy, I kept some of the VZ sales proceeds in the Communication Services sector by buying a handful of Walt Disney Co. (DIS) shares. DIS was nearly my smallest position, and it needed to grow in size to remain in my Portfolio. That was followed by a single-share purchase of Microsoft (MSFT), as this stock has been caught up in the March software selloff in the stock market. The majority of the proceeds went into buying more shares of PIMCO Corporate & Income Strategy Fund (PCN). This buy helped recoup the lost income from the VZ trim.
All the details for these transactions can be found in the following post…
Recent Transactions – VZ, DIS, MSFT, PCN
My transactions resulted in a net investment of $41.02 into my Portfolio. My forward dividend income increased by a decent $32.94 as a result of the moves.
Since the VZ sale was only a trim, and I only bought shares of existing holdings, the number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio remained 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.
It was another month of failing to tally a triple-digit addition to my forward dividend income. I may have to get used to this without those Reinvested Dividends helping me out every month. Dividend Raises still led the way in March, providing $38.49. This was just enough to outpace the $32.94 from Investment of Capital. Accounting for all the sources, I gained $71.43 of additional forward dividend income.
Progress Charts
The following are progress charts, also available on my Dividends page.
One quarter into 2026 and the YoY gains stick out in each of the months… in a good way!. I expect more of the same for April, even though I barely managed a YoY gain last year.
On an annual basis, here’s what the dividend totals look like.
After 3 months, my existing pace would have me exceed over $25K in dividends in 2026. However, my 1st quarter total for the year is a bit front-loaded, so I may not make it. Still, I like the start!
Summary
Near record dividend income was raked in by my Portfolio during March. I collected $2,569.52 in total… my 2nd highest monthly total ever! YoY growth continued to dwindle though, coming in at 6.66% for the month.
There were 26 dividend payments that I received, thus I averaged nearly $100 per payer. I tallied 11 triple-digit dividend payments, with my dividend from AFL being the largest at $213.36. All but two of this month’s dividends exceeded $20.
My Portfolio only received 3 dividend raises in March… half the number from February. My largest raise was only 6%, too. My forward dividend income climbed by a bit over $38 thanks to the three raises.
Once again, 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 made more Portfolio transactions in March – four of them to be exact. I trimmed VZ and added to three existing positions (DIS, MSFT & PCN). These moves resulted in a net investment in my Portfolio of a little more than $41, and added almost $33 in forward dividend income.
Tallying the contributions from all sources (just two in March), over $71 of forward dividend income was added to my Portfolio during the month.
Did your portfolio happen to bring in record dividend income in March? Did your portfolio see the same drop off in dividend raises that mine saw? Please share in the Comments!
I have updated the Portfolio & Dividends pages in conjunction with this monthly update.