Dividend Champions: Focus on Consumer Discretionary

The Dividend Champions spreadsheet and PDF have been updated through 2/28/11. 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; Challengers have streaks of 5-9 years. Together, all of these companies may be referred to using the abbreviation “CCC.” This is the ninth in a series of articles focusing on specific industries and isolating the CCC companies within those industries. The first eight can be found under my Articles page, beginning on March 2. Consumer Choices Beyond our basic needs, we face many choices of how to spend our consumer dollars. That includes personal products from tissues to household cleaners and clothing to entertainment, as well as the retailers... more

Dividend Champions: Focus on Industrials

The Dividend Champions spreadsheet and PDF have been updated through 2/28/11 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; Challengers have streaks of 5-9 years. Together, all of these companies may be referred to using the abbreviation “CCC.”
This is the eighth in a series of articles focusing on specific industries and isolating the CCC companies within those industries. The first seven can be found under my Articles page, beginning on March 2.
Basic Industry and More... more

6 Financial Preferred Stocks for Stable Yield in a Jumpy Market

We perused the preferred shares landscape to uncover values that can stabilize your portfolio amid skyrocketing commodities prices and a turbulent Middle East. Here is our analysis:Citigroup (C) Capital XX Enhanced 7.875% C+G: Citigroup has made great strides in improving its balance sheet over the last 12 months. The company is consistently running positive operating cash flows on a quarterly basis. The XX series yield 7.7%. Symbol Open High Low Close Net Chg %Chg Vol 52 Week High 52 Week Low Div Yield YTD %Chg Citigroup Capital XX 7.875% Enhanced TruPS C+G 25.49 25.64 25.44 25.60 0.09 0.36 30,236 26.49 22.26 1.97 x ... more

9 Dividend Stocks Sending More Cash to Shareholders

We all are looking for the perfect dividend stock. In a utopian world, the perfect dividend stock would be one that is both high-yield and provides a high dividend growth rate. Its share price would appreciate ratable with its increasing dividend. All of this would be driven by increasing earnings and cash flow.... more

Coca-Cola: Dividend Stock Analysis

The Coca-Cola Company (KO) manufactures, distributes, and markets nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups worldwide. The company is a member of the Dividend Aristocrat index and has increased distributions for 49 years in a row. The most recent dividend increase was in February, when the Board of Directors approved a 6.80% increase to 47 cents/share. The major competitors of Coca-Cola include PepsiCo (PEP), Nestle (NSRGY.PK), Unilever (UL) and Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPS).Over the past decade this dividend stock has delivered an annualized total return of 3.30% to its loyal shareholders. One of the largest shareholders in the company is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A). click to enlarge The company has managed to deliver an impressive increase in EPS of 9% per... more

3 Undervalued Energy Dividend Stocks With High Options Yields

As we mentioned in last week's article on undervalued Financial stocks, Standard & Poor's recently published a table with projected 2011 Earnings by Industry Sector: This week, we'll focus on 3 Energy dividend paying stocks with low PEG ratios, attractive mgt. metrics, and low debt, with options available. Although none of these firms are high dividend stocks, you can still achieve double-digit annualized returns on them, and lower your risk, via selling Covered Calls or Cash Secured Puts. These 3 dividend stocks are CNOOC (CEO), Marathon Oil (MRO) and China Petroleum & Chemical (SNP):(Company Profiles are listed at the bottom of this article.) Here are sector comps for these 3 firms (click to enlarge): All 3 firms look good when compared to broad sector avgs., excepting Profit Margin and... more

Highest-Yielding Health-Care Stocks (You Might Actually Want to Buy)

The power of dividend investing is pretty well-known these days. Higher-yielding stocks tend to offer higher returns over time than low- or no-yield stocks, according to research from Jeremy Siegel and others. In fact, the 20 best-performing survivor stocks from the original S&P 500 in 1957 are all dividend payers. What's more, reinvesting dividends acts as a "bear-market protector and return accelerator," according to Siegel. The extra shares purchased and accumulated at higher dividend yields during down periods act as a protector in falling markets, and these extra shares rising in value turn into a "return accelerator" when prices rise.... more

3 Dividend Champions With Excellent Growth Prospects

The following three stocks are “dividend champions,” identified by the DrIP Investing Resource Center as having increased dividends for more than 25 consecutive years. Additionally, all three of these stocks have attractive growth prospects. Each company listed below has a higher TTM EPS growth rate than their industry competitors. These companies also have two of the three following characteristics: Projected EPS (next 5 years) higher than the industry average Capital spending (last 5 years) accelerated at a faster rate than their competitors (theoretically, this makes them more competitive over the coming years) Cash flow growth has accelerated faster than their industry competitors over the last five years We're not going to go into detailed analysis for each company. The... more

Pitney Bowes: Is the 6% Yield Worth the Risk?

Pitney Bowes (PBI), headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, and founded 1920 is the world's largest manufacturer of postage meters and mailing equipment. The company operates in more than 100 countries throughout the world and employs some 35,000 people. There was a time, in the not-too-distant past, when Pitney Bowes was an above-average growth story, with a modest but above-average growing dividend yield. However, along came the Internet with its e-mail, fax machines, electronic billing, etc., and the growth dynamic of postage meters was forever changed. Even though the Internet changed the business dynamics of this blue-chip, Pitney Bowes today maintains the coveted status of a Dividend Aristocrat by logging 29 consecutive years of dividend increases through calendar year 2010.... more

Building a Dividend Portfolio: How Many Stocks Are Enough?

How many dividend stocks should you own in your passive income portfolio? It’s a common question and there is no way to answer it perfectly. Why? Because you could probably bring 10 different “experts” and they would all come up with different answers. There is no perfect answer, but it’s a question that I get so often that I thought it’d be interesting to at least give my point of view. Let’s start with the basics. Why you would want a number of stocks to be as small as possible? Having fewer stocks also means less trading fees. The more companies you have in your portfolio, the more difficult it becomes to track them. Why you would want it to be a big as possible? To smooth the passive income (adding companies makes dividend changes for one company less visible). To not... more