Sprague Resources (SRLP) paid $3.45, which was up 11 cents from last quarter. This stock used to be one of the stronger performers as far as market value was concerned. Lately, though, it's been in a downward spiral. It seems like it's been down, and down big, every day for a while. It's annoying, but as the dividend hasn't budged, I figure I might as well put up with it.
Omega Healthcare (OHI) paid out $2.02, up 4 cents from last quarter.
Paychex (PAYX) paid $1.13, up a penny.
Hormel (HRL) paid $0.42, which is up 4 cents from last time.
Realty Income (O) paid its monthly installment of $0.68, one cent higher than last month's.
All of the aforementioned increases were due to reinvested dividends.
I also had some new payers, AT&T (T) paid $1.02 and Senior Housing (SNH) paid $1.17.
You'll likely notice a name missing. HCLP is (perhaps conspicuously) absent, it turns out that after slashing their dividend, they went ahead and suspended it. Note that a dividend payment hadn't even been made between the two announcements, rendering the initial call quite pointless. This also made my initial expectation of one more dividend too optimistic. I was willing to wait it out at first, but after the suspension, I sold my shares. A cut, I can deal with, but if there's no dividend than there's really no point to holding on to it.
Speaking of, HCLP's successor, CenturyLink decided to follow suit and cut their dividend. From what I've read, they still have decent cash flow, but they are choosing to focus on debt repayment. Rather than wait like I did with HCLP, I sold two of my three shares. DRIP is still enabled, so if things do turn around, I've still got a small, growing piece. If it doesn't turn around, at least the damage will be minimalized.
I keep hearing about how dividend cuts are rare. Suffice it to say, having two occur in my still fledgling portfolio in rapid succession was vexing, to say the least.
It's not all doom and gloom, however. Wendy's announced a fairly sizable dividend increase this month. My position there isn't huge, but it was still a nice morale boost.
All in all, I received $9.89 in dividends. HCLP managed to screw me again and kept me from breaking the double digit barrier...as far as the taxable account goes. Thankfully, the 401K brought in $0.43 worth of dividends, bringing the grand total to $10.32. Considering my last breach was a fluke, it would have been nice if the taxable account had been able to hit the mark on its own, but this is better than nothing. Next quarter should see me accomplish that goal, provided there aren't any other potholes in the road ahead.
I made two stock purchases this month. I bought one share of Arconic (ARNC) and one share of Iron Mountain (IRM). The first was financed through the money gained from the HCLP sale. I would have liked to do more, but with the car down payment looming, I've reduced the amount of money I have set to transfer both to the brokerage account and to my online checking account in order to build up more liquid capital. Once that's taken care of, things should start to return to normal, but I am not looking forward to that financial incursion.
Speaking of checking accounts, I got $2.31 in interest. A 30 cent uptick isn't bad. I wouldn't expect too much of a hike next month for the reason listed above. For now, though, I can't complain.
I can, however, gripe about taxes. I filed my return and actually owed the IRS more than they had already taken. It was just $150, so it's not a devastating hit, but it is a vexing one. I was kind of hoping to use the refund to help cover the cost of the vehicle, but no dice. In turn, I opened up a traditional IRA CD/Savings account two-fer to go with the Roths. Between having more "pre-tax" money going into retirement savings and the fact that I'm now making charitable contributions, this should be a one time occurrence. It does give me extra incentive to put as much money away as possible to avoid a repeat. Oh, I also threw Andrew Yang's campaign $5. I do want to see him make it to the debate, but, to be honest, it was also somewhat retaliatory in nature. I do that.
This month was bumpier than I would have liked. Still, progress was made. With the impending car purchase, I wouldn't be surprised if this next month was also on the rough side. Hopefully, once that's over and done with, the waters of 2019 become much smoother.
"stock dividend" by CreditDebitPro is licensed under CC BY 2.0
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