With the end of March and the beginning of April, spring seems to finally be arriving after an unusually harsh winter here in the Pacific Northwest. Trees and flowers are starting to blossom and on weekends I hear the noise of neighbors’ lawn mowers as they give their lawns a needed trimming. Also part of spring is tax season and I just filed my taxes, so that unpleasant business is done.

So let’s do the numbers for March’s dividend income and see how it went for the month:

AWP $ 45.00
BGY $ 38.00*
CHW $ 21.00*
CIK $ 22.00*
CLM $ 44.43*
DHY $ 40.25
DMF $ 12.30
DSM $ 22.83
EAD $ 10.88
EDF $ 45.00*
EXG $114.00*
HQL $ 36.00
** $ 1.20
NCV $ 45.50
OIA $ 4.30
PFN $ 36.00
RA $ 69.85
VFL $ 15.00
ZTR $ 22.60
TOTAL $646.14
* Includes Return of Capital
** My employer’s stock, which shall remain anonymous.

Well, March’s total of $646.14 wasn’t too bad. Not great, but not bad either.

Unfortunately, March saw more dividend cuts than I would have liked:

• EXG cut its monthly dividend from 8.13 cents to 7.6 cents (a 6.5% cut).
• As mentioned in January’s dividend income report, HQL cut its quarterly dividend 10%, from 40 cents per share to 36 cents which was felt in March.
• PNNT slashed its quarterly dividend from 28 cents to 18 cents (a 35.7% cut). That’s going to hurt.
• EHI trimmed its monthly dividend from 8 cents to 7.5 cents (a 6.25% cut), plus there was no EHI payout for March (but payouts are scheduled for April, May, and June).
• VFL trimmed 9% off its monthly 5.5 cents dividend to 5.0 cents. VFL’s cut was just a small nick, but when added to the other above dividend cuts, it feels worse than it really is.

My ETF heavy portfolio always sees a lot of dividend cuts in the first quarter of the new year, so March’s dividends cuts are disappointing, but not surprising.  Thanks to these cuts, my projected monthly dividend income has declined a bit. 🙁

Overall, March was a good, but a tinge disappointing, month.

Image Credit: jarmoluk (pixabay.com)