There are several places where you will face volatility if decide to have your income from dividend stocks. First and probably the most volatility you will face is in the value of the stock. Secondly, your overall dividend growth will change from year to year. Thirdly, an individual stock can increase dividends one year and cut them the next or vice versa.
The value of your dividend stock portfolio can be calm sometimes and swing wildly other times. This can also be true of individual stocks. I do not worry about bear markets because I know all stocks are going to go down no matter how good (or bad) that they are. Generally, dividend stocks do not go down as much as the markets do, but they do go down.
In the last 2 bear markets my portfolio went down 30%. This happens in bear markets. It is not a time to panic. If your stocks go down in a bear market, I would not worry. I worry if my stock takes a dive when there is no bear market. My first stop to try to get a sense of what is going on is Stock Chase.
The growth in dividends will change from year to year depending on the economic climate and what is happening in the sector your stock is in. I have found in bear markets is that my overall dividend growth will decline. Sometimes because of the overall slow down of the economy my dividend increases are low. The lowest increase I have had is 3.9% in 2014. The year of 2010 was a low growth year with only a dividend growth of 5.3%. It has been a long slow recover from the bear market and decline of 2008 and I have had some low dividend growth years. However, dividends tend to growth more than inflation.
Some company will not cut or cancel dividends unless they absolutely have to. This is because dividend investors are an unforgiving lot. Stocks that cut or cancel dividends get hammered by the market. Some companies will keep their dividends flat for a number of years if they have some financial problems. They will hope that they can resolve the problems before they have to cut dividends. Other companies regularly declare what they believe that they can afford and ignore the market. Their dividends can go up and down over time. Generally, they will have increasing dividends over the longer term.
Know your companies and understand what their dividend policies are. Some companies will say what their dividend policy is and others you will be able to tell what it is from past history.
This volitivity is just background noise. If you can ignore the noise you can do well with dividend stocks over the long term. The best advise is never panic. People lose money in the stock market because they panic and do the wrong thing. Sometimes they buy because they think that they need to buy now otherwise the price of the stock will get to high in the future to buy, or they panic and sell because their stock has plummeted in price and they are afraid of losing more money. Never buy or sell because of panic. That is how you lose money.
On my other blog I wrote yesterday about BlackBerry Ltd. (TSX-BB, NASDAQ-BBRY) ... learn more. Next, I will write about Onex Corp. (TSX-OCX, OTC-ONEXF) ... learn more on Friday, August 17, 2018 around 5 pm.
This blog is meant for educational purposes only and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.
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