The first month of the second half of 2026 got off to a good start in my Portfolio.  Not only did my Portfolio notch a small uptick in value, but those dividends continued to roll into my account as well.

While the first month of each quarter is typically my least valuable in terms of dividends, the amount is still significant for me.  I’ll take 4-digits anytime.

 

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

Dividend income approached $1.7K, but didn’t quite make it.  After a negative YoY percentage for dividend income last month, I bounced back with a positive number in July.  However, I still posted my 2nd-worst monthly YoY percentage in 2026.

As is now usually the case each month, no dividends got reinvested.  Thus, I had no additional forward dividend income from this source in July.

My Portfolio collected 4 dividend raises in July, but that wasn’t the big news.  The big news was that one of my Portfolio companies unexpectedly eliminated their dividend entirely.  The company is implementing a new capital allocation strategy.  More on this coming up.  Unfortunately, this dividend loss completely wiped out all benefits of the raises I did receive in July… and then some.

Once again, I didn’t execute any Portfolio transactions this month.  This meant no change to my additional forward dividend income due to investment of capital.

Total additional forward dividend income from my 3 sources (reinvested dividends, dividend raises, and investment of capital) was limited to just Dividend Raises in July.  Due to the dividend elimination news I just shared, my additional forward dividend income in July turned out to be negative.  I’ll let you know the extent of the loss shortly.

I’ve got updated progress charts to share, too.  So, expect to see those later in the post.

Let’s take a look at the dividend details for July 2026, starting with my dividend income…

 

Dividend Income

 

My Portfolio collected $1,681.23 in dividends in July.  This was my 2nd-worst monthly total in 2026, only surpassing my monthly total from April.  Still, I’m not gonna sneeze at $1,681.23!

Monthly YoY dividend growth wasn’t stellar for July, at 5.21%.  However, this was better than the negative YoY growth I managed last month.

I had 22 companies pay me a dividend this month.  Of those, seven dividend payers paid me a triple-digit dividend, which I always appreciate.  Only one of my dividend payments failed to reach $27.50.  I like that!… significant dividend payments from all my holdings!

There was a competition to be my largest dividend payer for July.  That title went to RPM International (RPM), delivering $144.04.  This eked out the payment from PIMCO Corporate & Income Strategy Fund (PCN) that totaled $143.79.  My smallest dividend came from Intuit (INTU), which provided $15.67.

The increased dividend amounts from PCN, Automatic Data Processing (ADP), VICI Properties (VICI), Walt Disney Co. (DIS) and 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 $11 in YoY dividend gains from Omnicom Group (OMC), exceeded $10 from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), topped $9 from RPM, counted north of $8 from Illinois Tool Works (ITW), and saw Merck & Co. (MRK) account for another $6.

Of the July dividend payers that paid me both last year and this year, only one of them had a payout reduction.  The dividend from Main Street Capital (MAIN) declined due to my trim.  MAIN shares were looking overvalued to me at the time I sold last summer.

As for new dividend payers in July, there were none.  With my capital investments pared down significantly now that I’m retired, I expect more of the same in the coming months.

Finally, there were four stocks that no longer paid me a dividend this July.  The largest dividend that no longer arrives is the $72.94 from Comcast (CMCSA).  I sold CMCSA due to poor performance.  Then there was the absence of a $24.41 dividend from American Tower (AMT).  I sold AMT about a year ago to help purchase shares of PCN and Accenture (ACN).  A $24.28 dividend no longer comes in from FedEx (FDX) either.  FDX was a fine performer, but I wasn’t interested in growing the position further since it was my smallest Industrials position and I was already overweight in that sector.  Lastly, I no longer get a $6.25 dividend from Salesforce (CRM).  I unloaded CRM in order to lighten up on software names that were getting destroyed earlier in the year.

 

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

In July, I received 4 dividend raises.  Three of these were ones I was expecting, while the other was a surprise.  On top of that, one other company of mine that I expected to hear from in August made a dividend-related announcement as well.  Unfortunately, the company announced that they were eliminating their dividend!

Of the four raises I did get, a couple of them were solid hikes, including one that reached a double-digit percentage.  I always enjoy that.

Sadly though, the one dividend elimination overwhelmed the additional forward dividend income benefits I got from the four raises.  My additional forward dividend income was actually reduced in July.  I’ll share the damage coming up.

 

My first July dividend raise came from Fastenal (FAST).  This was the unexpected one.  It was a healthy 8.33% increase.  FAST previously hiked its dividend 9.09% this past January.  So, with this 2nd raise in 2026, the annual increase thus far comes to 18.18%.  This easily tops the 12.82% raise that FAST provided with two raises in 2025.  The boost to my forward dividend income from this unexpected raise was a stellar $52.88.

Next up was a 10% raise from Cummins (CMI).  This was my largest raise of the month in percentage terms.  This raise just surpassed the 9.89% increase that CMI provided last year.  I like that!  This raise also added $14.63 to my forward dividend income.

A couple of days later, NNN REIT (NNN) announced a two-cent quarterly dividend raise.  This translated into a 3.33% hike.  This fell shy of the 3.45% raise NNN delivered last year.  Still, the raise resulted in another $10.28 being added to my forward dividend income.

My last raise of July came from Union Pacific (UNP).  UNP provided just a 2.90% raise, as it seeks to keep its payout ratio near its targeted 45% number.  This raise failed to surpass the 2.99% increase from last year.  Nonetheless, the raise did add $14.96 to my forward dividend income.

Overshadowing the four raises covered above was the surprise dividend elimination announced by Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) late in the month.  SWKS outlined a capital allocation overhaul ahead of its pending merger with Qorvo.  The savings from the eliminated dividend will be used to reduce acquisition debt, redirect some cash to a new share buyback program, and to fund future growth.  This dividend elimination cost me $357.45 of forward dividend income, wiping out all of the progress from July and several other months this year.  In early August, since it no longer pays a dividend, I purged SWKS from my Portfolio (look for a new post soon) and am actively looking to replace the lost dividend income.

 

 

After accounting for all my July dividend raises (and the one dividend elimination), my forward dividend income decreased by an ugly $264.70.  The impact of that elimination is no joke.

If I ignore the dividend elimination for a moment and just focus on the four raises (totaling $92.75), I’d have to invest $3,801.23 at my Portfolio’s current yield of 2.44% in order to receive the same boost to my forward dividend income as this month’s raises.

Looking ahead to August, I hope to achieve positive forward dividend income again.  I expect to hear raise announcements from Illinois Tool Works (ITW), Altria Group (MO), Intuit (INTU) and perhaps Main Street Capital (MAIN).  I already received one raise for August, but I’ll defer reporting on that until next month.

 

Dividends Due To New Investment

I didn’t execute any Portfolio transactions in July.  In 2026, this has now been 4 times that I’ve had no transactions for the month.

As a result, I had $0.00 of additional forward dividend income coming from investment of capital.

The number of stocks/funds in my Portfolio remained at 57 through the end of July.

 

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.

 

 

With Reinvested Dividends and Investment of Capital no longer providing any additional forward dividend income on a regular basis, it was no surprise that Dividend Raises was my only contributing source in July.  But this source didn’t actually deliver anything this month thanks to that awful dividend elimination from SWKS.  Without that dividend elimination, I would have added $92.75 to my forward dividend income.  Instead, I ended up with -$264.70 of forward dividend income.  Ouch!

This was my first negative month for additional forward dividend income since November 2024, and just my second negative month since August 2020.  It’s a rare occurrence.

I was pushing for a triple-digit month of additional forward dividend income before that dividend elimination came along.  Maybe I can achieve that feat next month, as I should have a boost in the Investment of Capital category once I reinvest the SWKS sale proceeds.

The big negative number in Dividend Raises in July wiped out more than half of what I’d accumulated from that source in the first half of 2026.  I think my chances at reaching $1K from Dividend Raises in 2026 are really slim now.

Let’s see where I am after next month and I’ll re-assess what I might be able to do in the final third of the year.  Perhaps I can salvage my overall annual forward dividend income total.

 

Progress Charts

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

After negative YoY growth in June, I was back to positive YoY growth in July.  That’s more like it.  While YoY growth will be slowing in the months ahead (due to no longer reinvesting dividends or having significant capital investments) I should still be able to post positive YoY growth on a monthly basis from just Dividend Raises alone (this month being an outlier, of course).

 

 

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

I’ve collected over $14.1K in 2026 thus far.  This has already surpassed my dividend total from all of 2021.  I expect to exceed $24K in annual dividends in 2026… a nice $2K/month on average.

 

 

Summary

July provided some solid dividends for my Portfolio.  I collected over $1,681 despite it being the first month of the quarter, which is typically my lowest-paying month.

YoY growth in July was a modest 5.21%.  This at least reversed what was a negative growth number from June.

My Portfolio had 22 dividend payments in July.  Seven of the payers provided a triple-digit dividend, with the largest of those payments being $144.04 from RPM.  All my dividends were north of $27.50 except for a $15.67 dividend from INTU.

I received 4 dividend raises in July.  Three were expected ones, and a surprise one came from FAST.  However, an unexpected dividend elimination from SWKS overshadowed all the good vibes from the raises, as the lost dividend income from the elimination resulted in me posting a negative additional forward dividend income number for July.

There was no additional forward dividend income resulting from Reinvested Dividends (as my dividends are currently used for living expenses), or Investment of Capital (as I didn’t have any Portfolio transactions).

Tallying the contributions from all sources, I lost $264.70 of forward dividend income in July.  However, I should recoup a good chunk of that once I reinvest the proceeds from my recent SWKS sale (no point in having a stock in my Portfolio that doesn’t pay dividends).

 

What’s your lowest-paying month of each quarter?  Also, has your portfolio been subjected to an unexpected dividend cut or elimination recently?  If so, how significant was the impact?  Please share in the Comments!

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