Dividend Boosts Keep Getting Bigger but Dividend Stocks Are Snoozing. Reason to Worry?

“In the short run the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.” Benjamin Graham Readers who’ve come across my old articles know I’m a diehard dividend-growth fan. Have been for over a decade. Will be until I find an easier way to make money, which I doubt will be anytime soon. And that brings us to lately. Lately, dividend-growth stocks are a snooze. Not because their dividends stopped growing. Nope. With high corporate profits and cash levels, but low interest rates and payout ratios, dividend boosts keep getting bigger and better. Despite that happy circumstance, dividend growers have been stuck in the slow lane, lagging the market by a mile recently. Don’t get me wrong, like many dividend-growth investors I can ride out fluctuating stock prices because my dividends rise even when prices don't. But I still enjoy seeing my stocks go... Read more