January 2016, one-twelfth of the new year, is finished. How did that happen? To quote the wise sage Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Well, I hope your January was a good month, especially considering how the world’s stock markets have become more volatile, and likely entered the dreaded “correction” that many thought was going to happen in 2015. Seeing one’s portfolio drop 10% in a week is enough to make anybody nervous. It has been said that greed and fear are the only emotions that rule the market, and I agree.

Now that January is done, it’s time total up the month’s dividend payouts. Let’s do the numbers and find out how I did:

AWP $ 3.50*
BGY $ 49.00*
CHW $ 21.00*
CIK $ 22.00*
CLM $ 54.19*
CODI $ 25.20
DHY $ 42.00
DMF $ 13.50
DSM $ 22.83
EDF $ 13.50*
EHI $ 35.61
EXG $121.95*
HHY $ 37.50
HQL $ 71.00
HTR $ 38.00
NCV $ 45.50
OIA $ 4.10
PFN $ 36.00
RSO $ 63.00
VFL $ 18.00
TOTAL $737.38

* Includes Return of Capital.

Holy cow! Another $700+ month! It wouldn’t have been possible without HQL’s little New Year gift of a 71 cent per share payout this month. I don’t know the reason for Tekla Life Science’s largesse, but I won’t knock it. Clearly 2015 was good to HQL.

January may have been good, but dividend cuts made it fall short of what it could have been. RSO cut its dividend deeply, from 64 cents per share to 42 cents, a 34% cut. Ouch! Which makes my buy of 50 shares of RSO in October a less than good move. The effective yield is now 9.58% which is still decent, but obviously not as good as the 14.6% I was getting earlier. CLM trimmed its monthly dividend from 36.8 cents per share to 28.37 cents, which is a 23% cut. Ouch again! Thanks to the cut, my effective yield for CLM went from 12.36% to 9.53% These dividend cuts to RSO and CLM aren’t enough for me to want to sell off the stocks, but if the cuts go any further, then I may seriously consider selling.

The volatility that rocked the markets in January cut my portfolio’s value by approximately 10%, but dividend payouts were the second highest ever. In a stable or growing market, it’s easy to say “Oh, I’m investing for cash flow and not capital gains, so I’m not worried about market downturns.” But when volatility rears its head and one’s portfolio value drops, then that statement is put to the test. As investors all know, investing is as much a study in psychology as it is in economics and finance.

My dividend investing year had a good start in January, but only time will tell how well 2016 will treat us dividend investors.

Image Credit: jarmoluk (pixabay.com)