Can Longtime Dividend-Growers Keep Growing?

Growth plays a vital role in dividend investors’ success because stalled growth spells vulnerable dividends. And over many decades the venerable Coca-Cola, along with Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), McDonald’s (MCD), Procter and Gamble (PG) and other ‘too big to succeed’ dividend growers kept growing, ringing up nearly ‘too big to calculate’ total returns. Meanwhile, during the tough ten to fifteen years just past, some of the most familiar dividend-growth titans still grew, averaging 8% to 12% annual total returns along the way, despite supposed headwinds of size, longevity and bags of cash pitched out the window to dividend-hungry shareholders. In addition to MCD and PG, these hall-of-famers include Becton Dickinson (BDX), Clorox (CLX), Chevron (CVX), 3M (MMM) and United Technologies (UTX), among others. And the crusty, old-school S&P Dividend Aristocrats, dividend raisers for at least a quarter century, consistently thumped the market over periods ranging from the past three years to the past decade and a half. Still frisky after all these years.... Read more