Recent buy (APD) and recent sell (T)

Last week I sold my position in AT&T (ticker: T). I sold my 42 shares for just under $24 per share. I purchased these shares about three years ago for $28.65. I received about $240 in dividends during this period. The total return on my investment is a rather measly 1% per year. THe first year I received the usual dividend raise. One year after my purchase AT&T decided to stop increasing its dividend. To make matters worse, earlier this year they decided to slash its dividend because of the spin-off of WarnerMedia. I decided to offload my shares before the actual spin-off so I wouldn't be stuck with two positions I am not too happy about. This will decrease my annual forward income by about $74.

That said, with my cash position I decided to start a new position in Air Products & Chemicals (APD). APD provides essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications to customers in various industries, including refining, chemical, metals, electronics, manufacturing, and food and beverage. Given the high barriers for entry and long-term contracts with its clients, I expect this company to do well in the future.

The share price of APD is more than 20% lower than the peak in last year. Shares are yielding 2,6%. I believe the company is not THAT cheap, but I guess its fairly valued. I consider this my first purchase. Depending on the share price developemnt I could further increase my position. This purchase will add about $40 to my annual forward income.

All in all my annual forward dividend income decreased because AT&T was a higher yielding company before the dividend cut. However, later this month I might have a big enough cash buffer to make another purchase. Let's see what happens!

Dividend report: March 2022

March is over! Already the 3rd month of a new year.  March was a hectic month with regards to the stock market. There were some serious up- and down days but I am not worried about that. In the end it's all about the dividend income. Since I am not a seller of stocks at this point in my life, I don't really care about lower prices.

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?!

A total of €335 after tax. 15 companies paid me dividends. The dividend income increased by over 60% compared to last year. This increase is mainly the result of additional purchases in TROW (here and here), Unilever (here and here), Intel (here), BIP (here), BEP (here), new positions in Visa (here) and Cummins (here) and big raises from BHP (here), UNP (here and here) and Aflac (here).

So all in all a rather good month! I've used the dividend from Unilever and Shell to drip additional shares in both companies. I expect to use my available cash position to invest later in April.

In the graph below I've showed my cumulative dividend income for 2022 (which obviously is just the first three months of the year). But the start is great!

Currently my annual dividend income is around € 3.166. I still have to report a dividend cut from AT&T but that should keep my forward dividend income above € 3.000.

How was your March? What is your watchlist?