The 10 Highest-Rated Dividend Champions

I write extensively on the U.S. Dividend Champion list maintained and updated by DRIP Investing. The list is comprised of stocks which have increased their dividend payout for at least 25 consecutive years. My initial Dividend Champion articles on Scott's Investments focused on one or two company metrics, such as payout ratio, yield, or past performance. However, I now regularly combine multiple metrics to create an overall quantitative ranking for stocks in the list. This article uses a simple quantitative system which combines multiple metrics to give an "overall" rank of the stocks within the March U.S. Dividend Champion list. This ranking system is the most comprehensive yet, combining Dividend Yield, Payout Ratio, Forward Price/Earnings, Return on Equity, Total Debt/Equity, and price momentum (as calculated by the average return over the past 3, 6 and 12 months). I required the stock be yielding at least 2% in order to qualify... Read more