I managed to update the list of Dividend Champions for a fourth month in a row. Part of my process of updating the list is to:
1) Review dividend increases weekly, and note if any dividend champions have raised dividends for the month. In addition, check if any dividend contenders have increased dividends
2) Obtain a listing of forward dividend payments at the end of the month, and make a comparison to determine if any changes occurred in the meantime.
You can see that this is a somewhat manual process. However, it is helpful for me, since I rely on dividend champions so much in general.
The October 2018 Dividend Champions list can be downloaded as Google Drive Document or a Dropbox Document.
September Dividend Increases
In the month of September, we had the following champions extending their streak of consecutive annual dividend increases:
Brady Corporation (BRC) raised its quarterly dividend by 2.40% to 21.25 cents/share. This marked the 33rd consecutive annual dividend increase for the dividend champion.
McDonald’s (MCD) hiked its quarterly dividend by 14.90% to $1.16/share. This was the 43rd consecutive annual dividend increase for McDonald’s.
I also updated the record for West Pharmaceutical Services (WST) to 26 years of annual dividend increases. The increase was announced in May 2018 together with the regular dividend payment. The new quarterly dividend of 15 cents/share is 7.10% higher than the previous amount of 14 cents/share.
Dividend Champion Additions/Removals
There were no dividend cuts. However, one company is probably going to lose its dividend champion status at the end of the year, if it doesn’t raise dividends. Tenant Company (TNC) is in jeopardy of being removed from the list of dividend champions, since it hasn’t raised distributions since 2016.
Another company will be acquired in the first quarter of 2019, so I need to take it off the list then. This is utility Vectren (VVC), which had a 58 year streak of annual dividend increases. We have discussed before how dividend growth stocks make great acquisitions. I have found however that as a dividend investor, I would usually be in a better spot if the stock I owned was never acquired in the first place.
In the process of reviewing dividend histories and dividend increases, I have repeatedly stumbled upon a few companies with long histories of dividend increases that weren’t on the dividend champions list. After reviewing the dividend histories, I have decided to promote the following company into this elite list.
Abbott Laboratories (ABT) has increased dividends for 46 years in a row. The messy part about Abbott is that in early 2013, it split into Abbott Laboratories and Abbvie (ABBV). Since the split, both companies have managed to raise their dividends annually. Standard & Poor’s has both companies with the same track record of annual dividend increases, while the late Dave Fish had their track record at 5 years. The company that will keep the dividend increase record will be Abbott Laboratories, since Abbvie is a spin-off that doesn’t keep the legacy name. This is a similar situation to what happened with Altria (MO) in 2007 and 2008, after it spun-off Kraft and Phillip Morris International. Altria gets to keep the dividend record from before, while Kraft and PMI had to build theirs from scratch.
I decided to demote Realty Income, since it has only raised dividends for 24 years in a row. Realty income (O) raised its monthly dividend from 22 to 22.05 cents/share. The company will be eligible for inclusion after its first dividend increase in 2019 however. I still like the REIT, and would love it even more at lower entry prices.
Conclusion
This leaves us with 124 Dividend Champions for October 2018.
Relevant Articles:
- Dividend Champions - The Best List for Dividend Investors
- S&P Dividend Aristocrats Index – An Incomplete List for Dividend Investors
- Dividend Stocks make great acquisitions
- What are my dividend portfolio holdings?
- September 2018 Dividend Champions List
Popular Posts
-
A dividend king is a company that has managed to increase dividends to shareholders for at least 50 years in a row. There are only 30 such ...
-
The year 2020 was definitely a turbulent one. It was marked by lockdowns worldwide due to the Covid-19 pandemic, high unemployment and econo...
-
At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, the late Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, the author Joseph Heller, that their host, a he...
-
There seem to be to schools of thought when it comes to investing. One is the so-called value investors community, where folks look at low P...
-
A dividend champion is a company which has a 25 year record of annual dividend increases. There are only 134 such companies in the US tod...
-
One of the biggest misconceptions is that you need a high income to achieve financial independence . Your savings rate is much more importa...
-
I am a long-term dividend growth investor. I buy companies with a long streak of annual dividend increases, at the right valuation , and I h...
-
I recently signed up for a Health Savings Account (HSA) with my employer. A Health Savings Account is a tax-advantaged medical account which...
-
Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors in the world. He is the chairman and controlling shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, ...
-
A few years ago, I read about a study conducted by Fidelity on its client brokerage accounts. The study tried to identify the best performin...
