Hello everyone as we quickly approach July I thought I would share with you that I have an anniversary coming up. July 7th will mark my third year as a dividend investor, so I thought why not talk about all the dividend increases I have received since 2014. I have kept track of how many raises I have received from each company and the dollar amount that they have boosted my income by.
Where did I get the idea to keep track of dividend increases? Well I got the idea from the newspaper. I read the Globe and Mail everyday, as I believe they have the best business section of any paper here in Canada. Back in 2012 the paper started what they called a Strategy Lab in which four writers picked an investing strategy (growth, value, dividend and index investing). Each writer had $50,000 in virtual cash and could hold as many as 12 stocks in their portfolio. On Wednesday’s there is a column called the Yield Hog written by John Heinzl and he is the dividend investor in the Strategy Lab, John periodically does updates on his virtual portfolio. It was in one of his updates where I saw he tallied up all of his increases and the dollar amount, I thought it was an excellent idea because it allows an investor to see what kind of growth you can have by just investing in stocks that regularly increase their dividends.
Why do I keep track of the increases and dollar amount? I keep track of them because I love numbers. I call myself a numbers nerd. When I was a kid I can remember in the summer time I would buy a notebook then throughout the summer since I am a big baseball fan I’d go through the paper everyday to see the box scores and I would keep track of all the stats. Ok back to investing another reason why I do this is because it allows me to see which companies raise their dividend more frequently. It also helps me where to direct my money and add to my positions. For example I have received three increases of Enbridge, they have been increasing their dividend for the past 22 years. In the past two months I have added 51 shares of Enbridge, and I have also increased my position in Power Corp.
So let’s take a look at what I have received over the past three years.
| Stock | Number Of Increases | Income From Increases |
| Royal Bank of Canada | 6 | $45.12 |
| Bank of Montreal | 6 | $34.08 |
| Telus | 4 | $24.04 |
| Enbridge | 3 | $54.52 |
| Fortis | 3 | $50.76 |
| Canadian Utilities | 3 | $49.92 |
| BCE | 3 | $43.36 |
| TransCanada | 3 | $57.68 |
| Algonquin Power & Utilities | 3 | $43.75 |
| Alimentation Couche-Tard | 3 | $1.28 |
| Pizza Pizza Royalty Corp. | 3 | $12.60 |
| Proctor and Gamble | 2 | $6.44 |
| The Keg Royalties Income Fund** | 2 | $11.22 |
| Power Corp | 2 | $9.00 |
| JP Morgan | 2 | $28.16 |
| BMO US Dividend ETF | 2 | $42.96 |
| ZCL Composites Inc ** | 1 | $102.87 |
| Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust | 1 | $14.64 |
| Inter Pipeline | 1 | $7.80 |
| Chorus Aviation | 1 | $20.88 |
| Magna International | 1 | $2.80 |
| North West Company | 1 | $0.04 |
| Westjet | 0 | $0.00 |
| Boston Pizza Royalties Fund | 0 | $0.00 |
| Artis Real Estate Investment Trust | 0 | $0.00 |
| Leon’s Furniture | 0 | $0.00 |
| Exco Technologies | 0 | $0.00 |
| Total | 56 | $663.92 |
| ** Means I Received a Special Dividend not counted as a dividend increase |
So as you can see I have received a total of 56 raises for a total of $663.92 that’s not to bad in my opinion. All I had to do to earn that money was make an initial investment in these companies then sit back and watch the dividends go into my account. I don’t drip my dividends I take the cash which allows me the choice of investing in whichever stock I want.
I do have a handful of stocks that have yet to raise their dividend I am not to worried about them I am sure at some point they will reward shareholders with a raise. In the mean time I can continue to rely on great stocks such as Royal Bank, Telus, Enbridge, and BCE etc…
Well you guys are you a numbers nerd like me?? Do you keep track of your dividend increases? Please let me know I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you for reading this post I greatly appreciate your support.
Matthew
