We are well into 2026 now… almost half way.  May turned out to be another positive month for my Portfolio value.  I’ll always take that, but it’s the dependable dividends that I rely on month-to-month.  As expected, dividends continued to roll in, and I count on that as these days I’m using the dividend income for part of my daily living expenses.

The stock market was a bit volatile in May, but the dividends were steady.  Also, one of my largest dividend payers got back to its normal payment schedule this May, and that made my monthly income look like a big year-over-year winner.

 

I’m excited to share this month’s dividend results with you.  Here’s a preview of this month’s dividend income report…

Dividend income approached $1.9K.  How close did I get?  You’ll know soon enough.

Due to that shifting dividend payment I mentioned above, I had a blowout YoY percentage for dividend income.  I more than tripled my target.

No dividends got reinvested in May (as usual), thus no additional forward dividend income from this source.

Dividend raises were few and far between once again… for a 3rd straight month.  However, I did post my best month for dividend raises from an additional forward dividend income perspective for those three months.  This was due to a massive raise from an unexpected source.

There were a couple of Portfolio transactions that got executed in May.  The moves were comprised of a trim, and a purchase of an existing holding.  There was an increase to my additional forward dividend income, too, as a result of the net investment of capital.

Total additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) was limited to Dividend Raises and Investment of Capital in May, with one source just surpassing the other for largest contributor this month.  I’ll share the winner shortly.  The best part… I was able to post triple-digit additional forward dividend income from just the two sources.

I’ll provide updated progress charts later in this post.  I can tell you that the progress continues!

Here are the dividend details for May 2026, starting with my dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

My Portfolio collected a cool $1,893.43 in dividends in May.  Receiving nearly $1.9K in a non-quarter-ending month feels pretty good.

Most impressive, my monthly YoY dividend growth exploded to 33.37% due to the timing of one dividend payer that returned to normal this year.

I had 18 companies pay me a dividend this month.  This included a pair of payments that exceeded $200.  AbbVie (ABBV) was my top payer, delivering $262.91, while Nexstar Media Group (NXST) wasn’t too far behind at $228.65.  Six of my dividend payers delivered a triple-digit dividend in May, with a couple more knocking on the door.  Perhaps the most outstanding aspect of this month’s dividend payments… all of them topped $27.  Main Street Capital (MAIN) was my smallest payer with $27.01.

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 $19 in YoY dividend gains from ABBV, exceeded $15 from Fastenal (FAST), achieved nearly $8 from Procter & Gamble (PG), and ended up with exactly $7 more from Lowe’s Companies (LOW).

Of the May dividend payers that paid me both last year and this year, two of them had a payout reduction.  The dividend from Verizon Communications (VZ) dipped after my trim.  I unloaded my most expensive VZ shares after the stock saw a run-up in price over a short period of time.  The MAIN dividend dipped with my trim due to the stock looking overvalued to me at the time of sale.

As for new dividend payers in May, there were two of them.  The one from NXST was due to the shifting dividend payment I mentioned earlier.  Last year, the NXST dividend slipped into early June, while this year it returned to its normal late-May date.  This is what caused the big YoY dividend gain percentage I had for May.  My other new payer for May was closed-end fund PIMCO Corporate and Income Strategy Fund (PCN), delivering $143.79.

There were no stocks that no longer paid me a dividend this May.  This just means I didn’t eliminate any middle-month dividend payers over the past year.  This lack of selling certainly helps prevent any drag on my YoY dividend gain percentage.

 

Reinvested Dividends

As usual this year, 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

For the 3rd month in a row, my Portfolio received 3 dividend raises.  One of the dividends was a banger, while the other two were sub-5% hikes.

While I was expecting 3 raises in May, they didn’t all come from the companies I was expecting.

The raises only generated about half of what I needed for a triple-digit additional forward dividend income month.

 

The first raise I received in May was an expected one from Main Street Capital (MAIN).  The company came through with a 1.92% hike, which boosted my forward dividend income by $6.23.  MAIN has been delivering raises in May & November for each of the previous two years, so I am expecting another boost this coming November.  This year’s hike fell just short of the 2.00% raise (May) and 1.96% raise (Nov.) from last year.  MAIN also announced a supplement cash dividend that will be payable in June.

My next raise was a bit of a surprise.  It came from NVIDIA (NVDA).  May has been the month for previous NVDA raises, but they haven’t been consistent, so I wasn’t expecting anything.  However, NVDA came through with a massive 2400% dividend raise.  The payout went from 1 cent per share to 25 cents per share, and it increased my forward dividend income by $24.00.

My final dividend raise for May came from Lowe’s Companies (LOW).  It was a 4.17% raise that hiked my forward dividend income by $20.77.  This raise was slightly less than the 4.35% raise provided last year.  This is the 3rd year in a row of sub-5% raises from LOW after a scorching 20+ year run of raises that easily exceeded 15% on average.

One stock I didn’t hear from, but was expecting to, was Medtronic (MDT).  I’ll look for a dividend raise announcement from MDT in early June.

 

 

After accounting for all my May dividend raises, my forward dividend income increased by exactly $51.  This total bested the sub-$40 total from each of the past two months.  It also topped the $41.49 from May of last year.

I’d have to invest $2,048.19 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.49% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to June, I’m looking for one more raise than I got in May.  First there’s the dividend I suspect I’ll get from MDT (as noted above).  Then there are three usual June hikes I expect to see from UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Caterpillar (CAT), and Realty Income (O) – with the latter being the token quarterly raise.  All four of these companies have already announced a dividend raise early in June, but I’ll save on reporting on those raises until next month.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

After a quiet month of April, I managed to execute a couple of Portfolio transactions in May.  I trimmed one holding and added to another.

With my Broadcom (AVGO) position growing so quickly, and it growing beyond my preferred weighting, I decided to unload a handful of shares.  Unfortunately, the trim didn’t put a big dent in my AVGO weighting, as I didn’t want to realize a large capital gain.  Still, I was able to get something done.

I followed that up by taking my sales proceeds and some additional cash, and adding to my Accenture (ACN) position.  ACN has been in a severe slump in 2026, dropping over $100 per share, or about 40%.  It was a good chance for me to bolster my position while bringing down my cost basis.

The details for each of these two transactions can be found in the following post…

 

Recent Transactions – AVGO & ACN

 

My transactions resulted in a net investment of $321.32 into my Portfolio.  Even better, my forward dividend income rose by a healthy $57.40 due to the two transactions.

Since the AVGO sale was only a trim, and ACN was an addition to an existing holding, 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.

 

 

My best source this month was Investment of Capital, delivering $57.40.  This surpassed the $51.00 contribution from Dividend Raises.  In total, I gained $108.40 of additional forward dividend income.  This exceeded the total from May of last year by just two pennies.

After failing to score a triple-digit month of additional forward dividend income for the past 3 months, I got it done in May.  While only two sources contributed to my total, each carried more than half the amount needed.

The contribution from Dividend Raises in 2026 has been a little disappointing.  I’m trailing last year’s pace, collecting only about 75% of the amount I had at this time last year.  This has been a trend over the past few years.

 

Progress Charts

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

Each of the first five months of 2026 has included a YoY gain for my Portfolio.  However, I expect this to end in June thanks to that shifting dividend payment that benefited me this month.  Sadly, I think I will end up with negative YoY growth in June, but let’s wait and see.

 

 

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

In 2026, I’ve collected just under $10K after five months.  This nearly matched the dividend total for all of 2019.

 

 

Summary

It was a solid month of dividends in May as I pushed for a $2K month, but fell short.  Still, I’ll happily accept the $1,893.43 that I raked in.  YoY growth soared in May (33.37%) after not reaching a double-digit percentage (my target) in any of the past 3 months.

I had 18 dividend payments in May, with one-third of those being triple-digit dividend payments.  My dividends ranged from $262.91 from ABBV, to a respectable $27.01 from MAIN.  Having every dividend exceed $27 was nice to see.

Once again, my Portfolio received 3 dividend raises.  Make that 3 months in a row that this has happened.  The additional forward dividend income from the May raises ($51.00) topped the total from May of last year ($41.49), as well as the total from last month ($37.53).  The raise from NVDA made the difference in being able to top my previous totals as the company provided a whopping 2400% hike… Wow!

There was no additional forward dividend income resulting from Reinvested Dividends, as my dividends are currently used for living expenses.

I made a pair of Portfolio transactions in May and added $57.40 to my forward dividend income.  I trimmed my lower-yielding AVGO position and added to my higher-yielding ACN position.

Tallying the contributions from all sources (just Dividend Raises and Investment of Capital in May), $108.40 of forward dividend income was added to my Portfolio during the month.  This was my first triple-digit month since January.

 

Did you receive any unexpected dividend raises in May, or ones that were surprisingly large?  What company provides your portfolio with its largest dividend?  Please share in the Comments!

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