Dividend Duds: 25 Poorly Performing Dividend Growth Stocks

If you are pursuing a strategy of investing in dividend growth stocks, you are likely faring fairly well this quarter. Standard & Poors publishes the returns of its "Dividend Aristocrats" index, and it is down just 0.4% in Q2, substantially better than the S&P 500's -4.2% total return. For the year, it is up 7.75%, slightly behind the overall S&P 500's 7.86% return. For those not familiar with this index, it consists of Large-Cap companies which have increased their dividends for at least the past 25 years. I don't think that all conservative dividend payers have fared so well, so I ran a quick screen on all of the stocks in the Russell 3000 for the following: Dividend yield > 2% At least 5 consecutive annual increases At least 10% 5-year compound dividend growth There are 83 companies that meet these criteria. Strangely, the average YTD price return is just... Read more