The end of July means that two-thirds of the summer is already gone. Other than having our roof replaced and minor car problem, July was a fairly unremarkable month. July was certainly quite kind to the stock market, with the Dow rising approximately 2.5%. My total worth of my dividend investing portfolio did well in July.
How was my dividend income for July? Well, let’s add up the numbers and see…
AWP $ 3.50
BGY $ 38.00*
CHW $ 21.00*
CIK $ 22.00*
CLM $ 54.19*
CODI $ 93.60
DHY $ 40.25
DMF $ 12.30
DSM $ 22.83
EAD $ 10.88
EDF $ 27.00*
EHI $ 38.50
EXG $121.95*
HHY $ 30.00
HTR $ 38.00
NCV $ 45.50
OIA $ 4.10
PFN $ 36.00
PNNT $ 42.00
RSO $ 63.00
VFL $ 18.00
TOTAL $782.60
The good news: The quarterly payouts of PNNT, CODI, and RSO really gave July’s dividend income a nice boost, pushing it to a record high of $782.60. If not for the recent dividend cuts, I would have broken $800 for the first time, achieving a milestone worth celebrating.
The bad news: And the cuts just keep coming. BGY slashed its monthly dividend by 22.4% from 4.9 cents per share to 3.8 cents <sigh>. This will cost me another month, but I should still be able to reach my projected monthly average dividend income goal for 2016 of $750.00.
To make up for this hit, I am considering selling off my lowest yielding stocks to have the needed capital for more higher yielding stocks. When a taxable ETF stock’s dividend yield declines to less than 5%, it’s time to seriously think about why one should continue to maintain a position in that stock.
As I have said before, my dividend quest has been a six steps forward, two steps back experience and this summer has certainly proven just how true that is.
Image Credit: jarmoluk (pixabay.com)
Congrats on a great month of income. Dividend cuts have increased this year for sure. I’m interested in seeing how the market performs the rest of the year. Will it keep rising or settle down?
Thanks for visiting IH! Yep, that’s the Big Question isn’t it? The long dreaded/anticipated “correction” will arrive eventually. Anybody who thinks a bull market will continue forever is seriously deluding themselves. In the past couple years there’s been some brushes with a bear market, but the panics over the Chinese stock market crash and the UK’s Brexit vote quickly passed and portfolios recovered. The Financial Crisis of 2008 is an extreme example, but one consequence was that most company and fund dividends were slashed or suspended in 2009 as the market bottomed out, and dividends were slower to recover than stock prices.
What will I do when the next crash hits? I don’t know. When the market freaked out about the Chinese stock market crash and my dividend portfolio’s value dropped nearly 20%, I just gritted my teeth and rode it out while picking up a couple stock bargains. When the next crash occurs, recovery will take years and months, not weeks.