Recent buy: Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY)

On one of the last days of 2020 I added a position in Bristol-Myers Squibb (ticker: BMY). I wanted to strengthen the healthcare part of my portfolio. I only held JNJ and Baxter and wanted to diversify a bit further by adding a big pharmaceutical company to my roster.

I hesitated between purchasing shares of Bristol-Meyers, Pfizer or Abbvie. I compared their yields, valuation and other financial indicators but the differences were actually rather limited. I find it difficult to judge how their pipelines look and what I can expect in terms of future revenue growth between these companies. In the end, I went with BMY because of their slightly better valuation. Their ex-dividend date is actually today (not really a coincidence) so I expect to receive my first dividend payment February 1.

I added 22 shares for about $61,60 per share. This purchase will add roughly € 35 to my annual dividend income stream which stands at around € 1.840 pre-tax.

What do you think of my purchase?

Dividend raise: Realty Income and Aflac

I totally forgot about these two raises weeks ago but for the sake of full transparancy and completeness of my journey, I'll post 'em.

A few weeks ago Aflac has raised their dividend by a whopping 18%! This is much higher compared to their raises earlier in 2020 and 2019 which were around 4%. Because I added to my position in Aflac earlier this year, this raise will add more than € 13 to my annual dividend income. That's the biggest raise in absolut terms I have ever received from a public company. The new dividend will be paid in Q1 2021 for the first time, so I will count this as a raise in 2021.

More recently, Realty Income Corporation (Realty Income, NYSE: O) announced its Board of Directors has declared an increase in the company's common stock monthly cash dividend to $0.2345 per share from $0.234 per share. This raise adds a whopping € 0,12 to my annual dividend income. Ka-ching!

All jokes aside, Realty Income increases their dividend on more than one occasion each year. Last year they raised the dividend 5 times. I will count this as their first raise in 2021. Hopefully there's more to come next year!

Dividend report: November 2020

We're already done with November! Let's see how many companies sent me a dividend check for my ownership. These checks are the results of decisions I made earlier in life, sometimes years ago, where I decided to purchase shares in these companies. Nowaydays I still collect these checks but I have to do absolutely nothing to receive them. They just get deposited in my brokerage account, no questions asked. Isn't that great?!

Compared to last year my dividend income more or less remained the same. I received about € 87 after taxes, compared to € 92 last year. In total I got paid by 5 different companies. Three of my holdings showed some dividend growth albeit small. The decline in income is explained by a change in the USD.EUR exchange rate.



I am still ahead compared to the cumulative total I received last year till now. I still aim for an increase this year, but it won't be a growth of 40% as targeted but maybe something like 10%. We'll see what happens! In the meantime, I just keep grinding away, putting money to work and reap the rewards down the line.

How was your month? Do you see values in the current marketplace?