If you are purely an income investor, one of the factors you should always track is how much your dividends are growing over time in the stocks you hold. Even if the current stock prices are lower than your original purchase price, so long as you have no intention of selling and the dividend payments continue unabated, the purpose of your investments is still sound and you can be satisfied to continue holding the stocks.
It’s helpful to look back over a longer time frame to see how much you’ve made in dividends and compare your current yield with the yield received when you bought the stocks. Here is a look at one real estate investment trust (REIT) over the past five years and what it’s generating today compared to 2017.
