100 Dividend Champions: No New Names in June and Just 7 Payout Increases

During the past month, I have focused on updating the listings for dividend increases and other announcements. Following is a discussion of my latest efforts. Quiet Time During June, there were no new Champions and the number of dividend increases was fairly small, with just seven CCC companies boosting their payouts. In fact, one Champion was deleted when Wesco Financial reported that its shareholders had agreed to the company's acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) on June 24. The month saw one company graduate from Challenger to Contender status when FedEx Corp. (FDX) declared its 10th straight year of higher dividends. The ranks of CCC companies remained at 449 with the 5th year of higher dividends by mining company Randgold Resources Ltd. (GOLD). The slowdown in announcements didn't come as a surprise, however. My recent article about the seasonality of dividend increases by the CCC companies showed that roughly 62% of them increase their dividend in the first half of the year and that July is typically the lightest month of the year by Ex-Dividend Dates, so it follows that June has the fewest announcements. I believe that we'll see another couple of weeks of sparse activity before a pickup in declarations of higher payouts in the second half of the month. That should be augmented by roughly two dozen MLPs (Master Limited Partnerships) that tend to increase their dividends each quarter, paying at the new rate in early August.... Read more