September is a great month. Summer turns to fall, football returns, baseball teams battle for their chance to continue playing baseball in October, and most importantly, most companies pay a dividend! Let’s review my portfolio and dividend income received during September.
September Dividend Income Summary
As I have discussed in past months, I like to perform a quarter by quarter analysis of dividends received as opposed to year over year due to my portfolio growth. My September dividend income totaled $187.04 and is detailed in the total below. This brings my total dividend income received in 2014 to $904.85. For me, it is a great month. It was my second highest month, falling $18.79 short of my June 2014 total. Here are the major items that have impacted my dividend income for the month:
- VWNAX is a semi-annual dividend paying mutual fund in my company’s Roth IRA, so I only receive dividends in June and December. I opted for this fund over the quarterly paying dividend fund because of the higher yield offered without a major change in the structure of the fund. The other fund mirrors the S&P and has a comparable dividend yield while this fund focuses on higher dividend paying blue chip stocks. Both are great, I just selected the latter. It doesn’t pay as often but when it does, it pays a large amount. In June the fund paid $.20 over the June 2013 dividend total, so I am expecting a pretty nice payday in December which has historically been higher than the June total.
- I sold my position in SWM last month and used the funds to purchase stock in Diageo. I will receive a large dividend from DEO; however, the payment month is shifted from the third month of the quarter to the first month of the quarter. This will be reflected in my October dividend summary and should help increase the dividends received in a slower month. In the end it doesn’t matter and I am now invested in a stronger company. It is just nice to spread your dividends over each month instead of receiving the majority in only four months of the year.
- If you have followed our blog over the last couple of months, you would have read about the well documented $2 special dividend announced by Scotts Miracle-Gro. As soon as the announcement was made and the stock price immediately dropped, I scooped up ~21 shares of the company. The special dividend was finally paid this month and I nearly picked up a full share as a result. Unfortunately the dividend will decrease to $10 per quarter going forward unfortunately. However, it was a nice to have the one-time special dividend to bridge the gap between the semi-annual payments of VWNAX.
- Other than the events above, my income increased due to the power of dividend re-investing. I love seeing the small <$1 increases in quarterly dividend payments that are a result of dividend re-investing.
Transaction Summary
This will be a relatively short section of the article. I did not purchase or sell any stocks during the month. I am saving up for some investments in the next couple of months though, so the activity will pick up again soon. It was really difficult for me to sit on the sidelines though, especially the days where the stock market was down over 1.5% and many great dividend growth stocks fell. Oh well, there will be other downturns and investment opportunities.
Goal Summary
Annual Dividend Projection: $1,777 or 88.8% towards my increased dividend goal of $1,750. It will be a photo finish reaching this goal by the end of 12/31/14. But isn’t that the point of re-upping your goal and pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone?
Market Value: ~$44,250, or 88.% towards my adjusted goal of $50,000 by 12/31/14. I am writing this article before the end of the month, but I do not anticipate my portfolio’s ending market value substantially changing by the end of the month. So I will leave it at the fact I am sitting about 88% towards my final goal.
Dividend Yield of Total Portfolio: 4.02%. This is barely above my goal of 4.00%. However, this metric can change at the snap of Mr. Market’s fingers so I am still ruling it a work in progress
Roth IRA Contributions: One of my goals is to maximize the utilization my Roth IRA by investing in high yielding stocks that have a dividend yield greater than my portfolio average. I do not have any updates for this goal since I did not make any additional purchases during the year.
How did your perform in September? Did any of you set any sew dividend records or cross any goals off of the list? I can’t believe nine months are officially over in 2014. Soon we will all be setting our new goals for 2015!
-Bert