My Dividend Champions List as of December 1st

The Dividend Champions spreadsheet has been updated through 11/30/10. To download the latest version of the U.S. Dividend Champions spreadsheet or PDF, go here. (Note that all references to Champions mean companies that have paid higher dividends for at least 25 straight years; Contenders have streaks of 10-24 years; Challengers have streaks of 5-9 years.) During the past month, I continued to focus on companies subject to deletion because of back-to-back years of paying the same amount in dividends. This dividend streak “death watch” has now ended, as all of those companies have made their fourth-quarter declarations. Although many were subject to deletion, we ended the month with 416 companies (98 Champions, 126 Contenders, and 192 Challengers). The good news is that we appear headed into 2011 with far fewer “overdue” companies and I don't believe that we'll be eliminating a significant number of them in the new year. As I write this, there are only 16 companies (4, 4, and 8) with Red Dates, indicating that they've gone more than 12 months without an increase, and all of those will have the entire new year to extend their streaks.... Read more