Another month bites the dust! 2016 is officially 33% over everyone! The market began showing signs of weakness towards the tail end of the month and it seems like every dividend investor had a collective sigh of relief. There were two stocks that I have been big fans of for a while that finally had a nice pullback, so they earned a spot on my Watch List. The don’t have the highest yield, but they are all star companies in their industry. Let’s hope the slide continues for Visa and Starbucks. Back to business, now that I have received my final April dividend income summary.
April Dividend Income SUmmary
This month, I received $154.90 in dividend income, which is a 27.74% increase from April 2016! The chart below shows the details.
We love “boring” and this month was particularly boring. I didn’t receive dividends from any new companies. The growth highlighted in the chart above was attributed to an annual dividend increases and the power of dividend re-investing for all but one company. That one company, GlaxoSmithKline, issued a one-time special cash dividend. While I usually DRIP my dividends, it was a nice treat being able to use the cash to make a purchase. Oh wait, I haven’t told you all about the purchase yet. Don’t worry, there will be a Buy article soon enough. Personally, I love watching the drama in the pharm industry now that I own two of the industry’s major players (I purchased Pfizer earlier in the year). I’m just waiting for the next shoe to fall now that the Pfizer-Allergan merger was called off; my gut tells me that Pfizer isn’t going to stop hunting for an acquisition. But only time will tell here.
DIVIDEND INCREASES & STOCK PURCHASES
In the last section, I mentioned that I purchased a mystery stock. So in total, I purchased one new company during the month that added a pretty sizable chunk of forward dividend income to my portfolio. You will all know soon enough! Now for the dividend increases. You know what’s nice about having two people on this website, sometimes the other person does all of the work for you. On Friday, Lanny published an article about recent dividend increases from a few companies in his portfolio. Guess what, those were the only three companies in my portfolio that announced dividend increases in April! In total, the PG, IBM, and JNJ dividend increase announcements increased my annual dividend income by $.81, $5.15 , and $3.52, respectively. PG is a tough case and I’l be honest, I was expecting a little more from them. However, I would rather the company announces a small increase like they did than increase their dividend to an unsustainable payout ratio and sacrifice the long-term safety of the dividend. With that being said, something has got to give with their meager earnings growth.
Summary
Boring = Good. April was a fundamental dividend investing month. Own great companies and they will find ways to reward shareholders over the long run. I’m very happy with a 27.74% dividend growth rate for the month and my year of progress continues. Now that the market has pulled back a little, it is time to get serious about finding discounts and investing. There is still time to capture a June dividend income if I can time a purchase correctly. Let’s see if the timing and the prices are right.
Did you have a nice month of April? Did anyone else benefit from the GSK special dividend? What are your thoughts about the PG dividend increase? What companies of yours announced a dividend increase during the month and how much did you benefit from them?
-Bert
-Bert