Dividend Champions For May 2015

The Dividend Champions spreadsheet and PDF have been updated through 4/30/15 and are available at http://dripinvesting.org/Tools/Tools.asp 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. "CCC" refers to the universe of Champions, Contenders, and Challengers.New Milestones ReachedBy the time April ended, the CCC universe had expanded from 690 companies to 707, even after a few currency-related deletions. (There were 20 new Challengers, three deletions, and one promotion.) Surpassing the 700 mark came a month earlier than expected, thanks to a number of "early" increases by Near-Challengers scheduled to boost their payouts later in the year. Over the next several months, projections call for about 10 new Challengers per month, with the CCC population reaching 800 in early 2016, when the "Class of 2016" begins to "graduate." Another milestone was nearly reached in April, when the number of Challengers approached exactly 50% of the CCC universe. (That milestone actually happened on May 1, when former Champion Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) became the 354th Challenger and 708th member of the CCC.)The Near Challengers listing picked up 18 "NEW" notations (in Appendix B on the Notes tab), including the addition of Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), bringing the number of Near-Challengers to 170, down from 174 last... Read more