quarterly dividend updates

Dividend investing for me is a long-term strategy. I like to buy great companies at good value based on historical metrics,  dividend safety & future prospects. Hold them for a long time, re-invest dividends and wait for compounding to do its magic. 2020 was a crazy year! Market saw a 33% drop in March. Followed by a rally which saw S&P 500 return 18% for the year 2020. We saw so many stocks double or triple in space of 9 months! It is very difficult to keep on your dividends path when you see high growth/speculative stocks triple in 9 months. Here is my dividend income update for the year 2020 & what I did with my portfolio.

Dividend Income Update 2020

I made 3085 USD from my positions in 2020! It came from the following stocks:

This represents a 46% increase in dividends from 2019. Here is a percentage breakdown of dividends from all stocks in my portfolio.

As you can see, 3 stocks (NATI, T & MO) made up about 45% of my dividends in 2020. Even when I did my 2019 dividend income update, these 3 stocks did make about 45-47% of dividends that year. I have had the goal to bring down this percentage, however good value at various times throughout the year forced me to keep buying some of these stocks and so the percentage of their contributions remains the same.

If you are interested in these graphs and charts, please check out my post on how to create your own google sheet to track your portfolio across multiple accounts and create such graphs and chart.

My Buys in 2020

As I mentioned earlier it is very difficult to keep on your path when you see stocks doubling or tripling in a 9 month period. You always want to jump on the bandwagon in such cases but resisting is very hard. Keeping this in mind, I only bought INTC (Intel), MNR (Monmouth Real Estate) & HON (Honeywell) as new positions during the year. All were bought at good valuations as compared to their history. I wish to keep adding to these companies in future & I have no doubt they will help me grow my dividend portfolio.

Apart from the new positions, I kept adding new money to most of my existing positions through out the year except for TGT, QCOM, XOM, PEP, LW & BLK. All stocks did have dividends reinvested into them.

I also had the opportunity to keep adding to my VTI position which was a goal of mine at beginning of 2020.

My Sells in 2020

I sold out of GIS & TROW early in the year. They were relatively small positions in my portfolio & I wanted to focus on higher dividend growth rate companies and wanted to focus on lesser positions.

Apart from this, I also sold a bit of NATI, KTB to reduce position sizes whenever they got bigger than what I want them to be.

Dividend Cuts/Suspensions

Pandemic created havoc on people & businesses through most of 2020. It is natural to expect some of the companies to cut their dividends and come under a lot of un-natural stress. It doesn’t mean we cut those companies from our portfolio. I did have Disney Inc. (DIS) & KTB (Kontoor Brands) who cut their dividends in 2020. But I held on to both of them. Bought more of them at various price points. I am happy to report that both have more than doubled from my lowest purchase point during the year. KTB even brought back its dividend albeit at a lower level.

Not only this, but I also started selling covered calls for income on my KTB position which helped me make about 130$ on my position despite them paying dividends for only 2 quarters in 2020.

Performance for the year 2020

I ended the year at 22% as compared 18% from S&P 500 across my roth and traditional brokerage accounts. I did have a few non dividend income paying stocks that also helped me to beat S&P in those accounts. But point is by being consistent, having less rotation, mostly buying and holding & investing in great quality dividend paying companies it is possible to come out ahead and also create a good income stream.
Here is a neat timeline of dividends thrown by my DGI portfolio over the last few years which shows compounding of dividend income in action.

Plans for 2021

Buy more dividend growth stocks in our roth accounts. Currently, I get 45% dividends from 3 stocks in my portfolio. I will try to increase my existing positions in some holdings. I am also planning on consistently buying more VTI. As I have said before index investing is really my favorite type of investing and it also gives dividends. I also plan to start creating such reports only annually instead of a quarterly cadence before. I want to focus more on bringing quality content to this blog. Have more articles on investing philosophy, concepts and less on just stock ideas or my portfolio details. Hoping this becomes more useful to you in the long run.

Dividends stocks do come with some risk, but with precautions you can avoid the risky one’s and choose the best dividend paying/growing stocks for your portfolio. I prepared a guide where I discuss some key ratios, fundamentals, some important resources to look at while deciding to buy a dividend stock. Also find out how to get free access to Morningstar, Value Line, workaround paywall behind popular news sites like Seeking Alpha etc.  Consider signing up for free instant access to the pdf version of the insights into dividend investing.

How was 2020 for your portfolio? Please let me know in the comments.

Dividend Investing for me is a long-term strategy. I like to buy great companies at good value based on historical metrics and dividend safety. Hold them for a long time, re-invest dividends and wait for compounding to do its magic. To say Q1 2020 has been volatile is an understatement. Coronavirus has practically brought the world economy to a grinding halt. My heart goes out to all victims of this tragedy and urge every one to practice social distancing. While it has caused a lot of destruction, it also brought down valuations of well managed dividend paying companies to attractive levels. Here is my Q1 2020 quarterly dividend update:

Total: $706.16 for Q1 2020 (up 70% from Q1 2019 & up 20% from Q4 2019 )

Here is a graphical view of the same data:

Check out my and download/make your own dividend tracking sheet here and create awesome graphs as above for free.

My Buys in Q1 2020

So, the volatile market has offered some great opportunities! Frankly speaking I was not a 100% prepared to think about what to buy. I definitely had some stocks in my watch list, but I had not looked at them in a long time. Plus I got busy with a lot of work and so did not get much time to research any new stocks. So, at first I decided to add to my existing open positions which I thought were at attractive valuation. I also added a new stock to my portfolio.

• Added to my position in Abbvie Inc. (ABBV) in 70’s and then again in 60’s. I like their ability to generate cash flows. Allergan acquisition will go through later this year which will add to their earnings and also help them insulate with the upcoming patent expiration for Humira.
• Added to position in A.O. Smith (AOS) in 30’s and low 40’s. They have had issues with revenue drop off in China since 2019. However, I like the safety of their dividend and their expansion in India. Eventually, they should get back to growth in revenues.
• Added to my Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) position. You can read more about my complete research on Cisco Systems here.
• I also added to my position in Disney (DIS). They will definitely have an impact from the shutdown. However, I believe in the long term, Disney will manage to bounce back.
• I added to my position in Kontoor Brands (KTB). Full research here.
• Bought more Pfizer Inc. (PFE) stock. Upcoming spin off should help them focus more on growth and dividend should also be raised faster with growth.
• I also added to my position in Starbucks (SBUX). Crisis will impact revenues for Q1 2020 and Q2 for sure. But, they have been growing their dividend at a very fast rate and should bounce back. They even have a better shot at grabbing market share from local coffee shops around the world, since they will be able to bounce back much faster.
• I also bought more Wells Fargo (WFC) in 30’s & 40’s. Asset cap should get removed some time this year and new CEO should help clean the image of the bank and move past their crisis.
• REIT’s got hammered during this crisis. This gave me an opportunity to grab Realty Income (O) and Store Capital (STOR) at really cheap prices.
• The new stock I added to was Honeywell International (HON). I like their dividend safety & diversity in revenues. They have their hands in aerospace, healthcare, construction technologies, energy etc. A bigger article on this coming up soon.
• For full disclosure, I also bought some VTI. It was at 3% yield which might go down a bit in Q2. However I do not include this in any statistics shown in such updates.

I am projecting a increase to 2947$ in forward annual dividends as compared to 2103$ I made in 2019! I had not expected to be growing dividends so fast in 2020.

My Sells in Q1 2020

• My big sell this quarter was General Mills (GIS). It was in my taxable account and I wanted to free up some cash to move to my Roth account and buy better dividend stocks in there.
• Sold some of my position in National Instruments (NATI) from my taxable account. I just sell some of this position when it becomes too large, to reduce risk of too much of being in 1 stock.

Thoughts about Q2 2020

Upcoming quarter will be very interesting. Most companies will speak about impact of the crisis on their numbers. I am thinking about adding more to positions in PEP and HON for this quarter. Another REIT I am looking at is Monmouth Real Estate Corp. (MNR). Its a REIT that focuses on renting out big industrial properties to investment grade clients. Like, Amazon, Fedex, Coca Cola, IIPR etc. But I am yet to do research on it. I am also going to be looking at dividend cut announcements.So far, many companies have announced them and none of my companies that have cut or suspended their dividends. I am concerned about XOM and STOR, but I have confidence in them bouncing back in long term.

Check out my complete dividend portfolio here.

Click this link for my 2019 Annual dividend income update.

Dividends stocks do come with some risk, but with precautions you can avoid the risky one’s and choose the best dividend paying/growing stocks for your portfolio. I prepared a guide where I discuss some key ratios, fundamentals, some important resources to look at while deciding to buy a dividend stock. Also find out how to get free access to Morningstar, Value Line, workaround paywall behind popular news sites like Seeking Alpha etc.  Consider signing up for free instant access to the pdf version of the insights into dividend investing.

Dividend investing for me is a long-term strategy. I like to buy great companies at good value based on historical metrics,  dividend safety & future prospects. Hold them for a long time, re-invest dividends and wait for compounding to do its magic. In Q4 of 2019 I was able to add to my CSCO & PFE positions. Here is my dividend income for all of 2019:

Total: $2103.36 in dividend income for 2019 (up 37% from 2018 )

Here is a graphical view of the same data:

Check out my and download/make your own dividend tracking sheet here and create awesome graphs as above for free.

Here is how much percentage of the dividend income is coming from each of the 26 stocks in my portfolio:

My Buys in Q4 2019

• I added to my Cisco Systems (CSCO) position in Q4 2019 quarter. Cisco had fallen more than 20% from its highs. They reported a stellar fiscal year 2019.  However, they gave weak guidance for fiscal 2020. They expected slowness due to trade war and Brexit uncertainty. CSCO seems pretty good by all dividend metrics. Great payout ratio and good cash position. Cisco is midst of transitioning from a purely hardware focused business to subscription recurring revenue business. They are getting into business of selling chips with Silicon One, getting into security and application analytics software. I like the direction and actions company is taking to future proof itself. Here is a detailed analysis on Cisco Systems and their dividend metrics.
• I also doubled my position in Pfizer. Pfizer had announcements related to spin off plans this quarter. This has lead the stock to tumble to where I originally bought its stock. I think Pfizer would make sure that the spin off their expired patents drugs plus new Pfizer will give same in dividend income before spin off. However, I am yet to decide if I want to keep or sell the spin off after it goes through.

 I would expect my Q1 2020 quarterly dividend income to go up with help of these buys .

My Sells in this quarter

• None!  I would like to see each quarter as this one in terms of selling.

Check out my complete dividend portfolio here.

This is how the market value is spread across various industries in my portfolio:

Performance for the year 2019

I was able to beat S&P 500 across my roth and traditional brokerage accounts. I did have 3 non dividend income paying stocks that also helped me to beat S&P in those accounts. My wife also started a roth account in 2019. We bought dividend income stocks in that too. Since we started it in middle of the year, I do not have concrete performance data on that. But I will track it in 2020.

Plans for 2020

Buy more dividend growth stocks in our roth accounts. Currently, I get 45% dividends from 3 stocks in my portfolio. I will try to  increase my existing positions in some holdings. I am looking at $AOS and $WFC in the near term to add to.

Dividends stocks do come with some risk, but with precautions you can avoid the risky one’s and choose the best dividend paying/growing stocks for your portfolio. I prepared a guide where I discuss some key ratios, fundamentals, some important resources to look at while deciding to buy a dividend stock. Also find out how to get free access to Morningstar, Value Line, workaround paywall behind popular news sites like Seeking Alpha etc.  Consider signing up for free instant access to the pdf version of the insights into dividend investing.

Dividend Investing for me is a long-term strategy. I like to buy great companies at good value based on historical metrics and dividend safety. Hold them for a long time, re-invest dividends and wait for compounding to do its magic. This quarter  I was able to double positions in 2-3 of my holdings. Here is my Q3 2019 quarterly dividend update and comparison with Q3 2018.

 

Total: $585.53 for Q3 2019 (up 44% from Q3 2018 & up 13% from Q2 2019 )

Here is a graphical view of the same data:

Check out my and download/make your own dividend tracking sheet here and create awesome graphs as above for free.

My Buys in Q3 2019

• I received some shares of Kontoor Brands (KTB) from the spin off of VF Corp (VFC) last quarter. Shares of KTB went down significantly after starting trading. Most likely due to it being small-mid cap company post spin off. Many funds that held VFC probably were forced to sell KTB due to its market cap and fund rules. I thought of it as a good long term opportunity. They are in a very boring jeans segment in the market which has stable sales. Plus the 7+% yield was a bonus. I bought some more during Q3 2019. I did more analysis on it here.
• Doubled my position in Wells Fargo (WFC) in Q3 2019. This quarter had lots of talk about rates heading either direction. Rates were even cut for the first time in last 10 years. And then cut again. This created a lot of volatility in bank stocks.  I believe that the worst from their scandals is behind WFC now. The fed enforcing a limit to their balance sheet in the meanwhile has really helped them to focus more on good quality loans to generate income. Towards the end of the quarter WFC finally managed to assign a new CEO. New CEO probably has a lot of house cleaning to do, but I think this is definitely a step in positive direction.
• I bought some more of Altria (MO) in Q3 2019. With all the negative news around vaping and ban on vape devices from various state and international governments, MO’s price has fallen down a lot. Although I think MO management has a lot of experience with moving through regulatory hurdles. I think MO still has a pretty good chance of working with the governments to re-introduce vape devices in a very regulated manner. WSJ had a couple of interesting articles where they mentioned how JUUL took off their flavored pods form retail stores and ever since then we have had this health crisis. It also talked about how JUUL is already in process of making applications for May 2020 with the FDA to get their devices approved for sale. The dividend in the meanwhile appears safe.
• I also doubled my position in Pfizer. Pfizer had announcements related to spin off plans this quarter. This has lead the stock to tumble to where I originally bought its stock.

 I would expect my Q4 2019 quarterly dividend update to reflect higher dividends with the help of these buys.

My Sells in Q3 2019

• Sold some of my position in National Instruments(NATI) from my taxable account. I just sell some of this position when it becomes too large, to reduce risk of too much of being in 1 stock.

Check out my complete dividend portfolio here.

Click this link for my Q2 2019 dividend update.

Dividends stocks do come with some risk, but with precautions you can avoid the risky one’s and choose the best dividend paying/growing stocks for your portfolio. I prepared a guide where I discuss some key ratios, fundamentals, some important resources to look at while deciding to buy a dividend stock. Also find out how to get free access to Morningstar, Value Line, workaround paywall behind popular news sites like Seeking Alpha etc.  Consider signing up for free instant access to the pdf version of the insights into dividend investing.