Monthly report: August 2023

August is over! We're almost done with the summer. In my portfolio I had just one (big) winner (CSCO +9%), and some smaller winners. I had more losers though. Especially MPW (-27%) comes to mind because of its dividend cut, but also other companies like CMI, HASI, BAX and O lost between 8-13%.

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 about €170 after tax. Nine companies paid me dividends. The dividend income increased by about 50% compared to last year. This increase is mainly the result of my new positions in ASML (here, here and here), TXN (here, here and here), APD (here) and an increased position in Realty Income (here). Deere also showed steady dividend growth.

In the graph below I've showed my monthly dividend income.

Currently my annual dividend income is around € 10.600.

How was your August? What is your watchlist?

Monthly report: July 2023

July is over! In had a few big winners, like UNP (+13%), TROW (+9%) and some others (like IBM, BLK, MPW). A pretty broad set of companies and industries performed nicely. MRK was my biggest loser with -7%.

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 more than € 180 after tax. Nine companies paid me dividends. The dividend income increased by more than 125% compared to last year. This increase is mainly the result of new or additional purchases in MPW (here and here), HASI (here) MDT (here) and Realty Income (here). Dividend growth for my other holdings are somewhat muted.

In the graph below I've showed my cumulative dividend income for 2023 (which obviously is just the first four months of the year). But the start is great, mainly due to the month of janary! I've take some serious steps.

Currently my annual dividend income is around over € 10.300.

How was your July? What is your watchlist?

Monthly report: June 2023

June is over! We're halfway 2023. June was a rather nice month in terms of stock price development (but not if you want to purchase new shares I guess). I had some big winners in the industrial sector like CMI (+18%), DE (+15%) and AOS (+11%), but also MPW performed lovely (+13%) after its decline earlier this year. Biggest loser was ASML with -2% so nothing I can't handle :-)

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 almost €330 after tax. 14 companies paid me dividends. The dividend income decreased by a lot compared to last year. This decrease has two reasons:

• A deferred dividend from my employer Brink in order to fund the acquisition of another company.
• No special dividend/spin-off from BHP. Last year I received shares of Woodside Energy Group as part of the merger of their oil and gas business with BHP. I recorded this as a special dividend from BHP.

Without these two events my "regular" dividend income grew with about 13%. This is mainly the result of additional purchases in TROW (here), Aflac (here) UNP (here and more recently here), CMI, JNJ (here) and O (here). Compared to last year I also had a new position in BLK (here and here). I already announced that for this quarter Intels dividend will be reduced due to a dividend cut. That's a shame of course, but sometimes that happens.

So all in all a fine 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 August.

In the graph above I've showed my monthly dividend income. You can see last year's high dividend payments but the underlying trend is still up.

How was your June? What is your watchlist?

Monthly report: May 2023

May is over! We're almost half way 2023 already! The stock market had a positive month because inflation worries are reduced, interest rate hikes have stopped and debt ceiling issues seemed to have been solved. In any case, I am not worried about all these things. 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 (or higher) prices.

In my portfolio I had a few big losers, like BAX/HASI: (-15%), XOM/CMI -11-12%) and MDT/AFL/AOS/PM/DE (-9%), but I also had some winners, like ASML (+17%), OHI (+11%) and CSCO/TXN (+4-5%).

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 more than €170 after tax. Nine companies paid me dividends. The dividend income increased by more than 65% compared to last year. This increase is mainly the result of my new position in ASML (here, here and here), TXN (here, here and here), APD (here and here) and an increased position in Realty Income (here).

In the graph below I've showed my monthly dividend income. 

Currently my annual dividend income is around € 13.050.

How was your May? What is your watchlist?

Recent buy: UNP

Three weeks ago I purchased 10 additional shares of Union Pacific. UNP operates North America's premier railroad franchise, covering 23 states in the western two-thirds of the United States.

My first purchase was back in May 2015. The stock price was about $108 and yielded 2,0% at the time. During the last year I purchased additional shares on two other occasions. Back in October 2022 10 shares and earlier this year 5 shares. The yield on these last purchases was around 2,4 tot 2,7%. For this recent purchase I paid $196 per share which puts the yield at 2,6%.

Over the 8 years I've had UNP in my portfolio the dividend on my original purchase has grown at more than 11% per year. Dividend growth is lumpy with years of 20% dividend growth and years with just 5%. I am more than pleased with the results of UNP. My total return for this position is just under 10%, so that includes dividend and stock price appreciation. UNP currently is my biggest equity position at 4,5% of my portfolio. Only the investment in my (own) employers company is bigger.

For now I guess my position in UNP seems full. This purchase adds about $50 to my forward annual dividend income.

Recent buy: AOS

This is a rather late post to mention the fact that I have opened a position in AOS. Back in February I bought 25 shares for about $66 per share. A few years ago I wrote an article on Seeking Alpha about the company and its growth prospects in China and India.

The current yield is rather low (about 1,8%) but so is the payout ratio (about 35%). The dividend has grown about 18% per year in the last 10 years. But it seems to be slowing down somewhat in the last 5 years but still a respectable rate of 13% per year.

This purchase will add about $30 to my forward annual dividend income.

 

Monthly report: April 2023

April is over! For almost three so this update is rather late, but I guess I was a bit busy.

April was a rather slow month. More than enough macro-economic news but the stock market didn't really react to it in a big way. We'll see what happens in the coming months. 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.

In my portfolio I had a few winners, like BAX (+18%), MDT (+14%) and MRK (+7%), but I also had some losers, mainly in the chip sector like TXN and CSCO (-10%), INTC and ASML (-7-8%). Deere also lost about 8%.

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 almost € 300 after tax. Nine companies paid me dividends. The dividend income increased by more than 125% compared to last year. This increase is mainly the result of an additional purchases in Ahold Delhaize (here), MPW (here and here), MDT (here) and Realty Income (here). Dividend growth for my other holdings are somewhat muted.

In the graph below I've showed my cumulative dividend income for 2023 (which obviously is just the first four months of the year). But the start is great, mainly due to the month of janary! What is awesome to see is that the income from last month is higher than my annual income from last year. I've take some serious steps.

Currently my annual dividend income is just over € 13.000.

How was your April? What is your watchlist?