Nine Companies Giving Raises To Shareholders

I review the list of dividend increases every week, as part of my monitoring process. This is a helpful step that helps me check for dividend increases for companies I own. I update my dividend portfolio spreadsheet with the new dividend rates, in order to see if my portfolio’s organic dividend growth rate is increasing above the rate of inflation.

I also use this process in order to identify hidden dividend gems for further research.

I started with the list of all dividend increases for the week, and then narrowed it down by focusing only on those companies that have managed to grow dividends for at least a decade. I came up with a list of nine companies for today’s review. The next step involves a brief analysis of each company, analysis of trends in earnings and dividends, followed by a brief take on valuation. The goal is to analyze not only historical dividend growth, but try to determine if it was supported by growth in fundamentals. It is helpful to evaluate the latest dividend hike against the historical dividend growth. We are looking for companies that grow earnings, grow dividends and grow intrinsic values over time. However, we also want to get those companies only if the valuation is right. Even the best company in the world is not worth overpaying for.

The nine dividend growth companies which raised dividends over the past decade include:

Dividend Aristocrats for 2018 Revealed

The S&P Dividend Aristocrats index tracks companies in the S&P 500 that have increased dividends every year for at least 25 years in a row. The index is equally weighted, and rebalanced every quarter.

To qualify for membership in the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats index, a stock must satisfy the following criteria:

1. Be a member of the S&P 500
2. Have increased dividends every year for at least 25 consecutive years
3. Meet minimum float-adjusted market capitalization and liquidity requirements defined in the index inclusion and index exclusion rules below.

The group of companies in the Dividend Aristocrats index tend to generate reliable dividend income, and provide the potential for strong total returns. The list is well diversified across sectors.

There are 53 companies in the Dividend Aristocrats index, after the committee dropped C.R. Bard (BCR) from the list. The company is being acquired by Becton Dickinson (BDX).

The three new additions include Praxair (PX), A.O. Smith (AOS) and Roper Technologies (ROP)

The 2018 Dividend Aristocrats are listed below:

Getting Started – The Hardest Part About Dividend Investing

Imagine you have a certain amount of cash in your possession, which you do not plan on using for say 10 – 20 years. Or imagine that you are just starting out, and have a small amount of cash that will be added to your savings account every month.

You decide to invest that amount. You have been reading about dividend investing, and think it sounds cool to be paid more dividends every year from the investments you made years ago.

However, you have an uneasy feeling – there is so much information out there, you get information overload and you cannot do anything as a result. Where do you start?

Not all dividend stocks are created equal. A company is not an automatic buy, just because it happens to pays a dividend. You need to develop some knowledge to develop a framework to evaluate companies, and then need to use that knowledge to select companies for long-term income for your diversified portfolio.

So how to gain the knowledge if you are a complete beginner? What steps should you take?

Ten Dividend Companies Rewarding Investors With A Raise

As part of my monitoring process, I review the list of dividend increases every week. I use this list to monitor dividend increases for any companies I own, along with any pertinent news. I ause this process in an effort to check the pulse of dividend growth stocks in general, and potentially uncover hidden values.

To come up with the list today, I looked at all dividend increases over the past week.

I tried to narrow the list down to companies that have raised dividends for at least a decade.  I find it helpful to look at companies that have raised dividends for at least a decade, because this period covers a full economic cycle. This criteria also eliminates having to look at companies that achieved this streak of annual increases due to luck. A great company with a sustainable business model should be able to grow dividends for decades – therefore you do not need to buy it at the time it first initiates a dividend.

By focusing on the ten year requirement however, I excluded companies like Blackrock (BLK) from the group to discuss today. Perhaps, if they play their cards right, they will be featured next year.

I also included a short blurb about each company that fit the criteria from above, followed by pertinent information such as longevity of dividend increases and rate of annual dividend growth over the past decade. I find it helpful to review recent increases to the historical rate of dividend growth along. I also find it helpful to check whether the business is growing earnings per share, in order to determine if dividend growth is sustainable or it is running on fumes.

Last, but not least, I include a short evaluation on valuation. I look at P/E, growth in earnings and dividends, in order to come up with a rough idea whether I like a business or not. I believe that valuation is important. I look at the relationship between entry valuation and growth in determining fair value. This is how I determine if a company is worth researching further for my portfolio or not.

Without further ado, the companies that raised dividends over the past week include:

I Hit My Dividend Crossover Point

I wanted to share my exciting news with you today. I was going through my investments, and calculating my forward income and net worth numbers. After a little bit of adding things up, I came to the realization that I have exceeded my dividend crossover point in 2017. In other words, my forward dividend income from my taxable and tax – deferred accounts is set to meet or exceed my expenses.

I do not make monthly or quarterly updates like other blogs. The last update was probably in January of last year.  Though a lot of readers liked this update from 2015. I wanted to share this with you, and illustrate that aggressive savings coupled with patient dividend growth investing works.

Long-term readers know that this is a substantial increase from my position a little over ten years ago. Back when I graduated college in 2007, I had only a couple of thousand dollars to my name.

I was extremely lucky that my parents paid for my first year of college. This is why I cannot say that all accomplishment is entirely mine, since I had a large dose of initial help. But I was also lucky that I worked several jobs during school and summer breaks in order to pay for my college and living expenses for three subsequent years. Therefore, I had zero dollars in debt when I graduated.

After finding a job in 2007, I steadily saved a large portion of my paycheck. I had no idea how to invest my money however. The only no-brainer thing I knew how to do was to put enough in a 401 (k) to get the company match, and enough to get to the stock ownership plan. The stock ownership plan offered a discount on company stock, which could be sold right away for an almost guaranteed profit.