So long July 2020, it’s been an interesting month. As you know, July saw continued civil unrest but at less intensity than seen in early June, COVID-19 fatalities crossed the 150K mark while vacine research seems to be making solid progress, and the economy is slowly but steadily recovering as more businesses are opening up and workers are returning from furlough. Last week it was announced that the US GDP declined a whopping 32.9% in Q2. In comparison, the Great Recession (officially Dec. 2007 to June 2009) saw the nation’s GDP decline by 4.3%. Clearly the economy went off the cliff in Q2. I suspect GDP for Q3 will be better but still ugly. On a personal level, my portfolio’s total value seems to have steadied at around $79K (± $1.5K), so that’s sort of good, but I would love to see it return to its pre-COVID level of around $110K.

So how did my dividends do for July? Let’s do the numbers and find out

AWP $ 44.00
BGY $ 33.80*
CHW $ 21.00*
CIK $ 22.50*
CLM $ 46.33
CODI $144.00
DHY $ 28.88
EAD $ 9.30
EDF $ 20.00*
EHI $ 26.80
EXG $ 92.40*
NCV $ 29.75
NRZ $ 8.00
PFN $ 36.00
PNNT $120.00
ZTR $ 24.00
TOTAL $706.75

* Includes Return of Capital

Well, $706.75 is certainly nothing to complain about, although it is lower than normal given that the quarter’s first month is usually my best performing month.

And, thanks to having ultra-low expenses, I didn’t need to sell off any more of NRZ in July. Yay!

New dividend cuts certainly made their impact in July. EAD slightly trimmed its monthly dividend from $0.5390 to $0.5381. PNNT cut its quarterly dividend 33% from $0.18 per share to $0.12 per share. Ouch! On the bright side, there was a dividend increase, with NRZ doubling its dividend from $0.05 to $0.10. That’s good news, but it’s still down 80% from its old quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share. Which is why I’ve been incrementally selling it off the past few months.

Overall, July wasn’t too bad but not too great either. Keep cool!

Image Credit: jarmoluk (pixabay.com)