December 2014: Dividend Income and Trading Activity

Every month I am going to be providing a breakdown of the dividend income received from my shares. The overall monthly total will be included on the main “Dividends Received” page.

• Barclays--£4.04
• This is the same dividend as previous quarters. Bought one additional share.
• BP--£14.54
• Bought three additional shares.
• HSBC--£10.31
• Bought one additional share.
• Lancashire--£59.60
• Bought 10 additional shares.
• Sky--£12.40
• Bought one additional share.
• Tesco--£1.80
• This is a hefty cut of about 75% over last years interim dividend.
• Unilever--£9.01

Total for December: £111.70.

2014 Dividend Income Target Reached! What Next?

Great news! I have reached my original dividend income target for 2014.

I set it at £200 at the start because I did not expect to be saving and investing quite so heavily. Fortunately I was able to save and thus invest more than I had originally anticipated. As a result, here I am, early November and I have already hit my target.

So what to do next? I have two months remaining of 2014. However, for quite a few of my holdings from this point onward the dividend income will not hit my account until the New Year.

Consequently, I am unsure as to what to do. I could make a new target but this may result in me choosing to invest in a company chiefly because its dividend will be paid before the end of the year. Not a good way to invest.

Tesco publishes "Trading Statement" and Dividend Cut

UK supermarket giant Tesco has delivered a trading update to the market this morning. For shareholders (such as me) it reads rather badly for the short term. But maybe the longer term still looks a little less disappointing.

Dividend in decline? 

Perhaps most immediately obvious is the declaration regarding the dividend. They state that the "Board anticipates that it will set the interim dividend at 1.16p per share - a reduction of 75% from last year's interim dividend." It is a pretty dramatic slash of the interim dividend. It was 4.63p per share last year.

Assuming that the same 75% drop would occur to final dividend next year as well (which seems likely) we would expect to see a dividend at about 2.5p. What does this mean for the yield? Quite dramatic changes, as it happens.

THOUGHTS: Tesco to slash dividend by 48% to 10p per share?

Analysts are constantly pushing out new views of various companies' futures. Tesco, as one of the biggest and most high profile, is no exception.

However, a recent analysts report from Brewin Dolphin by Nicla di Palma, has suggested that with the price war waging amongst other considerations the Tesco dividend could face cuts to 10p per share.

That is a pretty sharp haircut on the current 14.8p dividend for this year. In fact, it is a 48% cut. That's hefty, but I don't think it marks a dark cloud arriving sort of concern quite yet.

Dividend Income: July 2014

Every month I am going to be providing a breakdown of the dividend income received from my shares. The overall monthly total will be included on the main “Dividends Received” page.

• Tesco--£15.20
• This was the same dividend value as both 2012 and 2013's final dividend, 10.13p per share. 2014 was thus another year of no dividend growth.
• HSBC--£4.70
• This was, as with Tesco, the same value as the 2013 equivalent dividend at $0.10 per share. Strength of the pound has diminished its value a little.

Total for July: £19.90.