Dividend Streaks In Danger: April Edition

In compiling the Dividend Champions spreadsheet, I separate the Champions (25 or more years of higher dividends), Contenders (10-24 years), and Challengers (5-9 years) into distinct groupings. Note that "CCC" refers to the combination of Champions, Contenders, and Challengers.
Dividends in Danger: Overview In any given year, there are a number of companies that fail to extend their streaks of consecutive annual dividend increases. The cause of failure generally falls into one of three main categories: Cuts, Freezes, and M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions). (A fourth category - Other - includes miscellaneous situations, such as Spin-offs, Reorganizations, and Currency-related decreases.) Here’s a look at the past 10 years of history:

A few “anomalies” bear explanation. First, the 2008-2009 period of the “Great Recession” included mainly Champions (and a few Contenders), whereas the large number of Freezes in 2010 coincided with the addition of the Challengers, when a number of companies were both added and deleted. (I believe those Freezes were a residual effect of the Great Recession.) Next, after several years of relative stability, the number of deletions surged from 2015 to 2017, following a “Great Expansion” in the CCC universe in 2014 and 2015.
Note the large number of cuts in 2015 and 2016. This coincides with the carnage among MLPs (Master Limited Partnerships) and other oil-related listings. The... Read more