Dividend Champions For April 2016

The Dividend Champions spreadsheet and PDF have been updated through 3/31/16 and are available 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. "CCC" refers to the universe of Champions, Contenders, and Challengers.
Shareholder Meeting Season Arrives
The arrival of proxies in the mail (or online) signals the arrival of annual shareholder meetings and with it (for many companies), the annual dividend increase...a good way to keep shareholders happy! So we can expect to see more dividend boosts in April and May, although many firms have already announced the increases during the past two months.
In March, the CCC universe expanded once again (see below), moving to 773 companies from 766 at the end of February, with 10 new Challengers, 3 deletions (all takeovers), and one promotion (General Dynamics to Champion status). The Near Challengers listing picked up just four "NEW" notations (in Appendix B on the Notes tab), bringing the number of Near-Challengers to 143, down from 150 last month and the record of 281 companies in September 2014. After February's action saw the average price of CCC stocks rise by 25¢, that figure gained a healthy $3.49 in March. While the average "age" of the dividend streaks dipped from 13.8 to 13.7 years, the average yield declined from 3.42% to 3.16% and the... Read more