Читать книгу The Dividend Investor - Rodney Hobson - Страница 40

If you want to receive dividends to live on or to supplement your pension then you would naturally prefer to receive a roughly similar amount each month.

Alas, this feat is virtually impossible (see Figure 2.1) and you should not attempt to pick investments on the basis that a particular company pays a dividend in a month where you are a bit short of the readies. Choose the best prospects, even if that makes your income lumpy.

Spreading the dividends you receive is difficult because:

 Most companies have year ends at 31 December or 31 March.

 Retailers usually have financial years running to the end of January, adding to the bias towards announcing full-year results in the early part of the year.

 Very few companies apart from holiday operators have year ends in the autumn.

 You are likely to have different sizes of holdings in your portfolio and in any case companies pay different sizes of dividends.

As I have noted, some companies take longer to pay the dividend than others, which will help to spread your income a little more evenly, but you have to accept the fact that you will not have the same amount coming in each month.

But then, nor will your outgoings be the same each month. While day-to-day items such as food and clothing can be spread fairly easily, energy costs will be higher in winter and holiday spending higher in summer. Always give yourself a little leeway in terms of keeping some ready cash available.

Figure 2.1 illustrates the distribution of final dividend payment dates throughout the year for the 618 companies in the FTSE All-Share Index.