Hello everyone! I hope all is well and you had a happy Thanksgiving holiday. My family had a fun day at home with relatives, giving me the opportunity to whip up a feast for the day. And that feast has been paying dividend all weekend, as we’ve been enjoying the leftovers for multiple meals.

It’s been another crazy busy year in 2019, as you’ve likely noticed by my lack of updates on the website. I’ve been able to publish a few articles on Seeking Alpha, but just haven’t been able to keep up much with this site. I thought it would be a good time to whip up a post here quick to give you an update on the portfolio, and share some things I’ve worked on in recent months.

The 3-Year Anniversary for dgiforthediy.com is quickly approaching, which is pretty hard for me to believe. I’ve gotten a bit of a renewed passion for writing here lately, so I’m going to do my best to get a post out at least once a month again.

The DGI For The DIY Portfolio

As you’d expect with the market at all-time highs, my portfolio has been performing quite well too. The portfolio has risen over 25% through the end of November, roughly in line with the returns of the S&P.

Dividend income hasn’t risen as quickly as the portfolio value, but I should be close to meeting my goal of 10% income growth for the year. 

It’s been a combination of things causing the lower income growth. One is the results of trades I made in February, as I trimmed or sold out of positions in higher income stocks like Omega Healthcare $OHI, International Business Machines $IBM, Target Corp. $TGT, and Tanger Factory Outlets $SKT and moved the proceeds into lower yielding stocks like Altria Group $MO, Broadcom $AVGO, and Home Depot $HD.

The other is slower dividend growth from some companies I own, as some of the energy companies, consumer staples, and others involved in M&A have had lower income growth this year.

This can be seen in November’s year-over-year numbers:

As you can see, sales and trims of shares of General Mills, Omega Healthcare, and Tanger Factory Outlets had a negative impact on income for the month. But in addition to those sales, there were seven stocks that failed to meet my goal for 10% income growth.

Of these, Apple $AAPL was the most disappointing, as I expected a company with its cash generation capability and low payout ratio to raise the dividend by at least 10%. 

Not all was bad though, as six stocks grew income by more than 15%, led by Mastercard $MA at 32.5%, and Kinder Morgan $KMI at 30.9%.

Dividend Increase Announcements

November was a good month for dividend growth announcements, as five companies announced increases. 

Announce Date	Company	Ticker	Previous Payout Rate	New Payout Rate	Sequential Increase	Year Ago Payout Rate	YoY Increase	Dividend Yield	Link
11/1/2019	AbbVie Inc	ABBV	$1.0700	$1.1800	10.28%	$1.0700	10.28%	5.42%	LINK
11/12/2019	Automatic Data Processing	ADP	$0.7900	$0.9100	15.19%	$0.7900	15.19%	2.16%	LINK
11/25/2019	Becton Dickinson and Co	BDX	$0.7700	$0.7900	2.60%	$0.7700	2.60%	1.22%	LINK
11/25/2019	Hormel Foods Corp	HRL	$0.2100	$0.2325	10.71%	$0.2100	10.71%	2.05%	LINK
11/26/2019	MCCORMICK & CO	MKC	$0.5700	$0.6200	8.77%	$0.5700	8.77%	1.47%	LINK

There were some nice increases, as Abbvie $ABBV, Automatic Data Processing $ADP, and Hormel Foods $HRL all raised the dividend by more than 10%. McCormick & Co. $MKC, raised by 8.77%, which will raise my income in the position by more than 10% when factoring in dividend reinvestment at the current 1.47% yield.

The lone disappointing increase came from Becton Dickinson and Co. $BDX, which raised the dividend by just 2.6%. This was expected, and will likely continue for another year or two as the company repairs its balance sheet following the $24B acquisition of C.R. Bard back in 2017.

Upcoming Dividend Increases

I maintain a spreadsheet of all dividend increases in the portfolio. So after a few years of tracking those announcements, I now have a pretty good idea of when new dividend raises will be coming.

There are seven companies in my portfolio with likely increases coming in December:

• Mastercard Inc. $MA
• WEC Energy Group $WEC
• Amgen, Inc. $AMGN
• Realty Income Corp. $O
• AT&T Inc. $T
• Dominion Energy Inc. $D
• Abbott Laboratories $ABT

I am expecting double-digit growth from Amgen, Mastercard, and Abbott Labs, roughly ~6.5% growth from WEC Energy, and low single-digit growth from Realty Income, AT&T, and Dominion Energy.

Recent Articles

While it’s been pretty quiet at DGI For The DIY lately, I have been able to get a few articles published on Seeking Alpha this year. 

First of all are the quarterly portfolio updates, which highlight my dividend income for the quarter, moves made in the portfolio, and what stocks I’m considering for future investment.

Here are the first three for 2019:

• DGI For The DIY: Q1 2019 Dividend Portfolio Update
• DGI For The DIY: Q2 2019 Dividend Portfolio Update
• DGI For The DIY: Q3 2019 Dividend Portfolio Update

In addition to those articles, I also wrote what proved to be one of my most difficult assignments, the ‘Chowder’s Lost Works’ series.

The series came about when Chowder approached me in late 2017, asking that I share the work of Joni Repasch, who was an long-time active member of the Seeking Alpha community, and who passed away earlier that year.

Over the years, Joni had saved many of Chowder’s blog posts and comments, and assembled them into three PDF documents that she hoped to share with young and novice investors to help them learn about the dividend growth strategy.

Here’s what I wrote about her and the project:

But Joni was far more than a kind soul, she was also an excellent and well-seasoned investor. According to her bio, she began investing around the age of 21, meaning she had 55+ years of investing experience. Take a look at her list of owned stocks on her profile bio, and you can see she had a keen sense when it comes to quality investing, and she was meticulous in tracking and reporting on it as well.

But she wasn’t content just having that knowledge, she was also intent on sharing it with others. She regularly posted helpful links to books, articles, stock research, and whatever else she thought others would find useful. Whenever she found something especially interesting, she’d download the article and save it for future reference, with a folder kept for each author she followed.

Here are links to the articles:

• Chowder’s ‘Lost Works’ Preserved By Longtime Reader Joni Repasch
• Chowder’s ‘Lost Works’ – Part 2: Older Folks Portfolio
• Chowder’s ‘Lost Works’ – Part 3: Portfolio Construction And The Valuation Scam

The three articles have been very well received by the community, and to date have generated over 600 comments and nearly 30,000 page views. I’m so thankful that Chowder asked me to participate, and that I was able to help share Joni’s work with the masses.

If you are interested in the PDF’s written by Joni, I’ve included links to all three in the dividend resources section of my blog.

Closing Remarks

The first eleven months of 2019 have been outstanding ones for the stock market. The indices sit near all-time highs, and that has followed through with my portfolio. 

Family life and other commitments have kept me from being very active on the website, but I’m hopeful that I can get back into the swing of things again, and become more regular in my posting schedule in 2020.

I hope you all are having a happy holiday season, and best wishes as we approach the new year. And, as always, Happy Investing!