How our £10,000 equity income portfolio for 2019 is doing

After picking 10 great stocks to generate £10,000 annual income, here's how the portfolio is performing.

It's been a great start to the year for stock market investors, despite plenty of concerns, especially around trade wars, valuations, Brexit and slowing global growth, but there have been quite a few setbacks for income investors. 

Marks & Spencer, Centrica and Vodafone are among the big-name FTSE 100 companies forced to cut headline-grabbing dividends, trimming yields from above 9% to more realistic levels.

And it's not been plain sailing for our portfolio, built at the end of 2018, designed to generate £10,000 annual income from investments in 10 stocks. 

However, and despite one high-profile hiccup, our share picks are doing exactly what they were chosen to do, and also providing capital growth, which is the icing on the cake.

• 10 shares to generate £10,000 income in 2019

Housebuilder Barratt Developments (LSE:BDEV) offered an attractive dividend, and it still yields almost 7% despite generating a 42% capital return for us between 2 January and 29 July. Shares in Legal & General (LSE:LGEN), GlaxoSmithKline (LSE:GSK), which confirms it should maintain the 80p annual payout in 2019, and Renewables Infrastructure Group (LSE:TRIG) are also up 12-15% and paying the dividend we expected them to. 

There are a few underperformers, the most obvious of which is Sainsbury's (LSE:SBRY). The planned takeover of Asda was blocked by the UK competition n commission and, what could have been an industry-changing event, turned into a disaster for the orange-liveried grocer. It's still paying the dividend but must now look for growth elsewhere.

And Vodafone (LSE:VOD), backed at 155p, the mobile telecoms colossus bowed to the inevitable and cut its dividend by 40%. However, the shares still yield 5.5% and the recent decision to realise value in its mobile phone masts business has been warmly received. The share price is now roughly where we backed the stock in January.

Events such as the Vodafone sell-off through much of the first half of 2019 are precisely why we diversify some of the dividend risk away by picking 10 stocks from largely different sectors 

Tobacco giant Imperial Brands (LSE:IMB) has also struggled after dropping its pledge to keep growing the dividend by 10% every year beyond 2019. But that really is no surprise given the Lambert & Butler and Davidoff maker must make its e-cigarette product offset a decline in demand elsewhere.

*based on 29 July prices