The crazy, turbulent month of November 2016 has finally come to a close. But you know what November coming to a close means, right? The best darn dividend month of the year is set to begin and I am as intrigued as every what December will have in store for us. Before I begin looking too far forward, it is time to summarize the past month and the dividend income I earned. How did I perform compared to November 2015 and was I able to achieve a higher year over year dividend growth rate compared to Lanny? Time to find out!
November dividend income and analysis
In November, I earned $160.19 in dividend income. What sucks is the fact that my dividend income decreased 9.34% compared to the prior year. What the heck! Looks like Lanny crushed my performance this year since he was able to sport a 9.52% increase in November. Nice job Lanny, you may have won our fake competition this month, but there will be plenty of other chances for me to strike in 2017. Watch out! I was upset about the decrease for about two seconds, and then I realized the decrease was purely cosmetic and the devil was in the detail for my performance this month. You know, for only receiving dividends from six companies this month, I have an awful lot of explaining to do. Here are the major events that impacted my November dividend income summary.
- I mentioned this event in my October dividend income summary article last month as well because it had the opposite impact. In 2015, the newly merged Kraft-Heinz broke from their trend of paying a dividend in first month of the quarter by distributing their dividend in November versus October. It made my growth rate in October 2016 look higher than it actually was and now, my dividend growth rate appears lower because of it. If I do not consider KHC, it would have swung my dividend growth rate for the month from a negative 9.34% to a positive 3.1%. So yeah, I would say this one-time event had quite the impact.
- I’ll get the negative out-of-the-way before I start discussing the positives. This will thankfully be the final time that I have to mention the KMI dividend cut that sent shockwaves through the dividend investing community when their dividend cut was announced around this time last month. The company has been performing well since this time last year and their balance sheet is much stronger as a result of a cut. Still, the impact to my income in the short-term definitely stung.
- Now, onto HCP. While their dividend income appears to have decreased compared to last month, it was not due to a dividend cut. Rather, this was the first month of the highly anticipated spin-off QCP. So naturally HCP’s dividend is going to appear lower as a result of the transaction. QCP has not announced the amount or date of their quarterly dividend payments yet, so I will hold off on further assessment until those details emerged. The dividend is the final piece of the puzzle that is missing from this transaction and I am eagerly awaiting QCP’s first dividend announcement.
- I’ve mentioned it every month so far in 2016, so I won’t elaborate on this point any more. At the beginning of the year, I sold 3 mutual funds and one of them was a monthly dividend payer. Thus, I did not receive my pocket change from OIEIX this month.
- I did mention there would be a positive bullet point earlier, right? Last but not least, the positive changes for the month. My investment in two community banks over the last 12 months has really paid off. The payouts I received from Citizens and Northern (CZNC) and Norwood Financial (NWFL) increased tremendously in a short period of twelve months. What’s nuts is that I am receiving over 2 new shares of CZNC each quarter as a result of my re-invested dividend, even after the community banking industry has taken off. CZNC pays a $1.04/share annual dividend, so each quarter, I am adding over $2.08 to my forward dividend income total. May not seem like a lot, but that $2.08/share could buy me an additional .10 shares of the company, which further accelerates the DRIP! Seeing my quarterly dividend from CZNC is one of the main reasons I started subscribing to the “purchasing stock in intervals of at least $3,000” philosophy that Lanny wrote about last year. Man, once you get the dividend snowball rolling, it is hard to stop.
summary
The past isn’t the only thing that has me excited as I reflect back on the prior month and November had a lot of memorable activities as well. I look forward to including Realty Income in my monthly dividend income summaries going forward since I purchased shares in the company at the beginning of the month. Further, that purchase help me knock out a 2016 goal as the purchase helped push my forward annual dividend income above $3,250. Nothing is more motivating to me than seeing these kind of results on a monthly basis and I cannot wait to review each of your summaries in the coming weeks. I truly believe that we are all on the right path and in the process of making amazing things happen. Developing this passive income stream can help you accomplish a lot, whether it is covering most of your monthly expenses to helping pay down your student loans/other debts. And the more I see the monthly payouts increase (Despite the fact my income appeared to decreases 9% this month, my dividend income would have increased without the KHC timing difference), the more motivated I become. So let’s make the best of our final month of 2016 and set the table for an amazing 2017!
Did you have a record-setting November? Were you bit by the KHC timing difference as well? What stocks are you watching/targeting for December? Are you ready for an insane December in terms of dividend income??
-Bert