Dividend Champions For February 2017

The Dividend Champions spreadsheet and PDF have been updated through 1/31/17 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; and Challengers have streaks of 5-9 years. "CCC" refers to the universe of Champions, Contenders and Challengers.
January Thaw
The year 2017 started out in typical fashion, with sparse activity for dividend increases. But then, in mid-month, the floodgates opened and many of the dozens of companies due to boost their payouts began to do so, including many with February Ex-Dividend dates. I expect this trend to continue through March and into April, when the Annual Shareholder meetings "season" gets under way. The next few months, in fact, tend to be the busiest time of year for dividend increases, and that's reflected not only terms of those extending impressive streaks of increases, but also in terms of new Challengers and Near-Challengers. There was one new Champion, Linear Technology (Nasdaq: LLTC), but its status may be fleeting, since it's about to be acquired.
After the CCC universe expanded slightly to finish the year at 768 companies, it jumped to a total of 788 companies at the end of January. The latest month featured 22 new Challengers (plus a reinstatement), 3 deletions and 4 promotions. The Near-Challengers listing also picked up 22 "NEW" notations (in Appendix B on the... Read more