The stock market was up big in April.  It helped erase all the Portfolio losses I suffered in March.  Up and down the stock market has been, but my dividend income was as predictable as ever… just like it’s supposed to be.

In Q1 of 2026, I collected over $6K in dividends.  I’d like to do that again in Q2.  The best way to ensure that happens is to get off to a good start in April.  Unfortunately, my weakest month of each quarter is the first month.  Still, every dollar I collect in April is one more dollar that May or June doesn’t need to deliver.

 

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

Dividend income exceeded $1.6K… not bad.  However, YoY growth came up short of my 10% target for the 3rd month in a row.  You’ll know the final percentage soon.

One dividend inadvertently got reinvested in April (recall I’m using my dividends for living expenses these days instead of reinvesting them), but it didn’t result in any additional forward dividend income.  I’ll explain why in just a bit.

Dividend raises continued to be limited, as I’m now into the 6-month window where my number of monthly dividend raises are few.  In April, it was three Portfolio stocks that boosted their dividend.  Sadly, none of them managed a double-digit raise percentage (not even close).  The bump to my forward dividend income from the three raises was just OK, as you’ll see shortly.

For the second time this year, I didn’t execute any Portfolio transactions during the month.  Thus, there was no increase to my additional forward dividend income due to investment of capital.

The total additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) was limited to just Dividend Raises in April.  This was going to make it difficult to post triple-digit additional forward dividend income, which i didn’t.  I’ll share the final total coming up.

Of course, I’ve got updated progress charts to share near the end of the post.  It’s always nice to see the progress outlined there.

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

 

Dividend Income

 

In April, my Portfolio raked in more than $1.6K in dividends, settling at $1,630.96.  This was nowhere near a record monthly total, but I’d say my weakest months (first month of each quarter) are looking good overall.

My monthly YoY dividend growth ticked up some this month, coming in at 7.21%.  While this didn’t achieve my 10% target, the percentage did exceed last month’s YoY gain.

I had 22 companies pay me a dividend this month.  Payments varied quite a bit… ranging from a healthy $144.04 from RPM International (RPM) to a measly $0.25 from NVIDIA (NVDA).  Seven of my dividend payers delivered a triple-digit dividend in April.  Additionally, only two dividends failed to reach at least $27, and all but five exceeded $51.  Lots of solid dividends were delivered in April!

The increased dividend amounts from Automatic Data Processing (ADP), VICI Properties (VICI), BlackRock Health Sciences Trust (BME) and Intuit (INTU) 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 $12 in YoY dividend gains from Omnicom Group (OMC), north of $10 from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), exceeded $9 from both RPM and Illinois Tool Works (ITW), and topped $7 from Merck & Co. (MRK).

Of the April dividend payers that paid me both last year and this year, just one of them had a payout reduction.  That company was Main Street Capital (MAIN).  I trimmed MAIN last July due to the stock looking overvalued to me.

As for new dividend payers in April, there were two of them.  The one delivering the most income (by far) was closed-end fund PIMCO Corporate and Income Strategy Fund (PCN), delivering $132.54.  At the other end of the spectrum was the $0.25 dividend provided by NVDA.

Four stocks no longer paid me a dividend this April.  Those stocks were Comcast (CMCSA), American Tower (AMT), FedEx (FDX) and Salesforce (CRM).  I sold CMCSA and CRM due to poor performance, while I took some profits with AMT and FDX, a couple of stocks that I wasn’t planning to make a larger part of my Portfolio.  The CMCSA dividend was the largest dividend I gave up at $72.25.  This was more than double the $36.02 I was getting from AMT.  Letting go of the FDX dividend of $22.98 wasn’t too painful, and the $6.24 from CRM didn’t hurt much at all.

 

Reinvested Dividends

I actually had some reinvested dividends this month… by accident.   When I bought NVIDIA (NVDA) back in February, my broker turned on dividend reinvestment by default, and I forget to change the setting.  So, when April rolled around and NVDA made their dividend payment early in the month, my dividend got reinvested.  Of course, NVDA’s yield is so small and my share count is small enough that the resulting reinvestment (a whopping $0.25) didn’t generate any forward dividend income.  However, I did get 0.001 more share.  Maybe I’ll just leave the reinvestment on.

So, chalk up another month of $0.00 of additional forward dividend income generated due to reinvested dividends.

 

Dividend Raises

April brought my Portfolio just 3 dividend raises.  The worst part… all of them were lower than 5% hikes.

All the raises I received were ones I was expecting.  Unfortunately, their lackluster raise percentages left me wanting more.

Even though two of the companies providing raises to me are some of my largest dividend payers, the small raises weren’t enough to get me close to totaling a triple-digit additional forward dividend income total.  Perhaps next month!

 

A pair of the raises were announced on the same day in the middle of the month, with the final one arriving in the final days of April.

It was two of my legacy stocks that announced a raise in the middle of the month.  Both Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Procter & Gamble (PG) delivered nearly identical raise percentages.  The JNJ raise of 3.08% was a tad better than 3.00% raise from PG.  The 3.08% raise from JNJ didn’t live up to the 4.84% hike it delivered last year.  Meanwhile, the 3% raise from PG was a noticeable step down from its 5% boost from last year.

The PG raise was its lowest since 2023, when it also raised 3.0%.  For JNJ, it was the company’s lowest raise percentage since at least 2001 (as far as I looked back).  PG’s raise translated to $18.83 of additional forward dividend income, which was my best for the month.  JNJ’s raise generated a decently close total of $17.70.

My last dividend raise of April came from one of my newest dividend payers – Alphabet (GOOG).  This is just the 2nd annual dividend raise from GOOG since initiating a dividend.  Its 4.76% hike was my best of the month.  However, with GOOG being a smaller position for me, it didn’t generate much additional forward dividend income… just $1.  This year’s raise failed to match the 5% raise that GOOG provided last year.

 

 

After accounting for all my April dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by $37.53.  This total was almost as good as the $38.49 from last month, but it didn’t approach the $69.26 from April of last year.  Good dividend raises seem harder to come by these past few years.

I’d have to invest $1,495.22 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.51% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to May, dividend raises will be few and far between once again.  I suspect I’ll receive 3 raises… the same number I’ve had each of the past two months.  Those raises include ones from Main Street Capital (MAIN), Medtronic (MDT) and Lowe’s Companies (LOW).  One of those companies has already announced a dividend raise this May, but I’ll defer the specifics for that raise until next month.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

I didn’t execute any Portfolio transactions in April.  After a couple of months with a few moves, I laid low again, as I did in January.

Thus, I had additional forward dividend income of $0.00 coming from new investment.

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.

 

 

Make it 3 months in a row now that I failed to tally a triple-digit addition to my forward dividend income.  This was mainly due to the fact that Dividend Raises was my only source contributing to the cause.  I gained $37.53 of additional forward dividend income… my lowest total of the year.

 

Progress Charts

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

We’ve made it one-third of the way through 2026.  Each month thus far has included a YoY gain for my Portfolio… just as I’d hope.  However, this probably won’t continue in June as a shifting dividend payment will be normalizing.

 

 

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

Four months into 2026 and I’m averaging nearly $2K per month in dividends.  You know I like that!  My 2026 total so far has exceeded my entire 2017 total by more than $1.2K.

 

 

Summary

Even my smallest dividend total thus far in 2026 was still sizeable.  I collected $1,630.96 in dividends in April.  YoY growth climbed a bit in April (7.21%) compared to March (6.66%), but this still fell shy of my 10% YoY monthly target.

I gathered 22 dividend payments in April, which included 7 triple-digit dividend payments.  My dividends ran the gamut, from $144.04 from RPM, to just $0.25 from NVDA.  However, the majority of payments exceeded more than $50 each.

My Portfolio only received 3 dividend raises in April.  This matched the total from March.  The additional forward dividend income from those raises in April ($37.53) nearly matched the total from March, too ($38.49).  My largest raise only reached 4.76%.

Once again, there was no additional forward dividend income resulting from Reinvested Dividends, even though I inadvertently reinvested the $0.25 that NVDA delivered.

I didn’t make any Portfolio transactions in April.  Thus, chalk up $0 in additional forward dividend income from Investment of Capital, too.

Tallying the contributions from all sources (actually, just Dividend Raises in April), $37.53 of forward dividend income was added to my Portfolio during the month.

 

How well did you start Q2 from a dividends standpoint?  Have you been disappointed with the raise percentages you’ve been seeing from your holdings over the past year?  Please share in the Comments!

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