May 2020 Dividend Income

As I'm writing this blog post here on May 31st, it has been an astounding 83 days since the Milwaukee Bucks last played and the MLB season has yet to start about 2 months after what was scheduled to be Opening Day.

The past few months have definitely been an adjustment in terms of my time commitment as the Bucks used to consume 7-8 hours a week of my time between games and occasional perusing of Bucks news/team and player grades for each game.

Fortunately, I have this blog, dividend investing, mobile gaming, spending time with family, and playing basketball in the driveway to fall back on or I would have completely lost my mind by now.

With that being said, I'll be examining my dividend income for May 2020.

Analysis:

During the month of May, I collected $86.62 in net dividends against the $86.62 in dividends collected in February 2020, and generated a 96.7% YOY growth rate compared to the $44.04 in dividends received in May 2019.

Delving into things a bit further, I received $74.84 in dividends in my Robinhood portfolio from 16 companies net of the $5.00 in Robinhood Gold fees and $10.99 in Robinhood Gold for my use of margin. I also collected $11.46 in dividends from 3 companies within my Webull portfolio. Lastly, I received $0.32 in dividends from 15 companies in my M1 Finance portfolio.

The same amount of dividends collected from February 2020 to May 2020 was as a result of the following activity within my taxable accounts:

I benefited from $1.44 in additional dividends from Williams Sonoma (WSM) as a result of my purchase of another 3 shares in March.

I also received an extra $3.36 in distributions from Energy Transfer (ET) because of my decision to purchase 10 units of ET during my March buying spree and 1 unit of ET in February.

I received an extra $1.76 in dividends from British American Tobacco (BTI) as a result of my purchase of 3 shares in March, net of ADR fees.

I also benefited from my purchase of 2 units of Magellan Midstream Partners (MMP), which boosted my dividend income by $2.06 during May.

My purchase of an additional 3 shares of Realty Income (O) in March and O's dividend increase resulted in an additional $0.70 in dividend income in May.

Another purchase that boosted my dividend income was my purchase of 1 share of AbbVie (ABBV), which added $1.18 to my May dividend income.

My purchase of 16 shares of Main Street Capital (MAIN) in March resulted in an extra $3.28 in dividend income collected in May.

I also collected an additional $0.02 in dividend income as a result of Tanger Factory Outlet Centers' dividend increase, though the company later suspended its dividend, which will likely impact my August income report.

EQM Midstream Partners' (EQM) recently announced distribution cut affected my distributions for the first time in this report, which resulted in a $3.09 reduction in May distribution income.

I also added 12 shares of ONEOK (OKE) in March, which led to an additional $11.22 in dividend income during May.

My purchase of an additional 5 units of Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) resulted in an additional $2.23 in distribution income in May.

My purchase of another share of General Dynamics (GD) in March and GD's recent dividend increase boosted my dividend income by $1.26 in May.

The March purchase of an additional 2 shares of Lowe's (LOW) added $1.10 to my May dividend income.

An additional 3 shares of AT&T (T) that I also purchased in March added $1.56 to my May dividend income.

Due to the timing of The GEO Group's dividend payment, I collected $5.76 less in dividends during the month of May.

Due to the fact that Simon Property Group is deferring its dividend announcement until June, my dividend income was $6.30 less in May than it was in February.

My Robinhood Gold subscription deducted $5.00 from my net dividend income and the interest on my margin deducted $10.99 from my net dividend income.

The final activity came within my M1 Finance portfolio, again, when EQM Midstream Partners paid me $0.03 less in distributions compared to February.

Concluding Thoughts:

Overall, I'm pleased with a steady mid-quarter month in May compared to February as it was a few months ago that we began to see the impact of dividend cuts and suspensions within my portfolio and many other dividend investor's portfolios.

While I do believe that there will be a couple more cuts within my portfolio over the next two months, I am encouraged by the fact that I have paid down nearly $2,500 (half of my total margin heading into May) and over 60% of the margin that I intend to pay off as I plan on using the first $1,000 in interest free margin to essentially cover the cost of Robinhood Gold with dividends on that $1,000 to access Morningstar's reports and the other benefits of Robinhood Gold.

The significant deleveraging that I was able to execute during May will more than offset the impact of any of the dividend cuts that I am expecting in the next two months and since I anticipate that I will begin investing to the tune of $1,500-$2,000/month once again beginning in July, I am forecasting a slight uptick in my August dividend income, approaching $100 net of Robinhood Gold fees and interest.

Discussion:

How was your May in terms of dividends collected?

Did you benefit from any first time dividend payments from new holdings?

What are you forecasting for your August dividend income?

As always, I thank you for your readership and welcome comments in the comment section below.