January 2018 Dividend Income

My first dividend earnings for 2018! I think I am going to stop calling this my “off” month. I say this because in truth it was a very active and exciting month for my financial world. In the first two weeks of the year I made three purchases and one sale. I sold UHT (for a profit of $3,565.16) which added $12,000 to my purchasing power in addition to my normal savings. I bought 188 shares of O, 58 shares of ED, and 21 shares of SO. All that activity gave me a net dividend gain of $201.20 in forward annual dividend income. For this month I received $380.90 in dividends from 3 companies.

Medical Properties Trust (MPW) – $216.00

Starwood Property Trust (STWD) – $103.20

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – $61.70

January 2018 Dividend Income Total: $380.90

For the first time ever, I am happy to be able to post my year over year percentage increase! The month of January 2018 saw a 4.34% increase from the same month last year ($365.05). I am happy to see an increase. This is the month set where I receive the least amount of dividend income from the least amount of stocks. These are the same three stocks that I owned last year. The dividend growth is just from companies increasing their dividends over the last 12 months.

This month includes GSK’s fluctuating dividend that differs each quarter, so the numbers could go higher or lower depending on what GSK does this year. This was especially true since I only had three dividend paying stocks this month set. But since I have purchased 188 share of O in early January, this fourth stock will add to my dividends for this month set. Having O would also better shield against GSK’s variable dividend should it decrease. I will start receiving dividends from O starting the month of February.

Another great aspect of this month can be summed up in two words: Dividend Increases! OHI raise their dividend to $0.66 per share which bumped up my dividend income from $904.80 to $918.72. That is a $13.92 gain in dividends. SRLP has now become the top dividend producer in my portfolio. SRLP has raised its dividend for the 15th consecutive quarter to $0.6375 per share (an increase of 10% from last year). This increased my dividends from $1,431.75 to $1,466.25 representing gain of $34.50 in dividend income. Thank you SRLP!

Next there was my new stock ED, which raise its dividend to $0.715 per share. This increased my dividend income from $160.08 to $165.88 for a gain of $5.80. And finally, my other newly purchased stock O also raised its dividend to $0.219 per share. This increased my dividends from $479.40 to $494.06 giving me a gain of $14.66 in dividends. Yes, I would call this a great month!

Altogether, the aggregate amount of dividend increases from those 4 companies added a total of $68.88 to my forward annual dividend income! My portfolio now stands to generate $8,548.33 in dividend income over the next 12 months. From restructuring my portfolio a bit to dividend increases, this has been quite an exciting month. So how was the first month of 2018 for the rest of you?