Dividend Growth Investor - March 2026 Newsletter
Welcome to the March 2026 edition of the Dividend Growth Investor Newsletter. In this edition, I discuss the companies I purchased for my portfolio in March.
The goal of the newsletter is to go beyond just buying companies every month. The real goal is to show how real wealth can be built in the stock market. The process of building an income portfolio is very simple, but not easy. An investor simply needs to save money and put them to work in attractively valued stocks regularly. The next step involves reinvesting dividends either selectively or through a DRIP. The last step is the most exciting one – to patiently hold on to your collection of businesses for the long-term. To build a dividend machine, one has to arm themselves with a lot of patience and a long-term focus. This means avoiding the expensive habit of timing the market because it “looks high” or because “it is crashing”. Having the patience to hold on to your investments through thick or thin is a habit that is within the control of the investor.
There are a lot of distractions along the way, which can trick the investor into trading in and out of positions, or to get scared from market corrections. Other distractions include switching strategies because something else has done better in the past and everyone is talking about it. While it is important to monitor the portfolio regularly, it is also important to avoid falling prey to minutiae that may not matter a few years from now. Avoiding distractions is one factor where investors have control over.
As I mentioned in the first edition of the newsletter, the real goal is to generate $1,000/month in dividend income from this portfolio. I am going to achieve this goal by focusing on things I can control. These include:
The amount of money I can save and invest every month
The ability to invest in attractively valued dividend growth stocks regularly
The ability to reinvest dividends along the way
The ability to stick to my strategy through thick and thin and hold for the long-term
The ability to keep costs low
Given the fact that I am limiting myself to invest approximately $1,000/month for this portfolio, I am realistically setting myself up for reaching those goals within five - ten years from now. I selected this long-term goal in order to push myself to think long-term, and avoid thinking short-term. I try to select companies that I believe will be around in a decade or so, and will be more profitable and pay higher dividend payments along the way. I also evaluate dividends for safety. I focus on valuation today as well as long-term fundamentals. Without growth in fundamentals, and the ability of the business to grow them over time, the companies I invest in will be unable to achieve future dividend growth.
Long-term focus is important, because this portfolio will also be expected to provide solid dividends for the lifetime of the person who will be inheriting it. I am not just shooting for $1,000/month by the 2030s. I want to have a portfolio that will grow that dividend income stream without additional capital, beyond the 2030s. This is why I try to be careful what I include in this portfolio.
I plan to be diversified, in order to reduce the impact of errors that will be made along the way. The portfolio will be built slowly along the way. Based on my experience, different sectors are available at different times. Hence the portfolio weightings will likely look lopsided in terms of sectors in the first year or so. Around year two however, the portfolio will likely look more diversified than today.
Now that I discussed in a little bit more detail the overall philosophy the newsletter, I am going to list the companies I purchased this month. The full list is in the table below: