Once a month, a look inside the dividend machine — one I've run for over a decade, and which has already passed the income target I set for it: what it pays, what got raised, and what changed. No picks, no predictions — just the machine, reported.

October income

The machine's forward income rate ended October down 1.9% from September. Nearly all of that is one deliberate move: I closed the Novo Nordisk position on October 1, and its dividend left the machine with it. That's not a cut — it's a choice — but it shows up in the income line exactly the same way, and the machine report counts it the same either way.

The monthly payers added some weather of their own. The October checks from the option-income funds came in smaller than September's — the income from SPYI was down 4.7% and from BTCI down 3.2%, while QQQI's was essentially flat. Those distributions aren't declared dividends; they're option premium passed through, so the amount moves month to month by design. A smaller check isn't a cut — it's how those funds breathe. Weather, not climate.

Raises

  • AbbVie raised its dividend 5.2%, announced with its earnings in late October.
  • Accenture raised its dividend 4.9%, declared October 1.
  • Altria's August raise (+4.7%) paid at the new rate for the first time in October.

Changes

  • Novo Nordisk: exited October 1 — the one exit worth explaining. I bought it for three things: the dividend, the dividend growth, and the valuation. Two of the three stopped being true in the account where I held it. The dividend arrives with Danish withholding already taken out at the source, and inside an IRA there is no foreign tax credit to recover it — a permanent leak I didn't price when I bought it. And the growth leg weakened: softer guidance and share losses to its main competitor turned a steady dividend compounder into a turnaround story. I still like the company — it used to be a client of mine. But the position wasn't the one I bought, so it's out, and its dividend is out with it.

One more thing about that exit, because it reads like a pure loss on the income line and it isn't: the proceeds didn't leave the machine. They're sitting in cash, and cash is a position in this portfolio — not the absence of one. It still earns interest while it waits, it keeps every option open, and it's the fuel for future dividend streams. Some of it already has assignments in year-end planning, and January's annual review will hand out the rest. A slightly smaller stream today, traded deliberately for the ability to buy a bigger one on purpose — that's a trade this machine will make every time.

Looking ahead

Two things are on the machine's calendar. November's plan: start a position in Morgan Stanley — a 2% position, held in the Roth, with room to add if the price pulls back to where the value math gets more interesting. It earned its way in the hard way: this portfolio is a closed roster, so passing the screen — the dividend, the growth behind it, and the price — isn't enough. A new name has to beat a current holding to earn a starter position. This one did.

And in January, the machine gets its next annual review — every holding graded on whether it raised its dividend, by how much, and whether it still earns its place. A few names go into that review with questions to answer. For example, Sirius XM hasn't raised its dividend since 2022, and my rule for it has always been simple: a dividend that stops growing stops belonging. January is when it answers.

October's lesson is the boring one: a dividend machine's income line moves for reasons that mostly have nothing to do with the market — a position closed here, a raise there, a soft month from the monthly payers. The machine doesn't need a story every month. It needs reporting. See you in November.

— Brian

Education, not advice. I'm not a financial advisor. I share what I do and why, with the math showing — you make your own calls.