Dividend Resources: Stocks that have increased dividends for 10 or more consecutive years.
August 2nd, 2006I am kind of jammed up with stuff to do today so I thought I would leave you with a couple of valuable resources for those of you interested in investing in quality dividend paying stocks. It always helps to have some data handy and here are a couple of good places to start. I have no affiliations with any of these sites. They are simply resources I personally use.
The Mergent's Dividend Achievers page is packed full of some quality lists for you to use in your own stock research. There are several mutual funds and ETFs that use the Mergent's Index as their benchmark for dividend paying stocks. The Mergent's Broad Dividend Achievers list includes most all the stocks that have increased their dividends for 10 consecutive years or more. (Some were eliminated for liquidity reasons but for all intents and purposes this is all the stocks that have done so.) If you look on the left side of the page and click any of the links and select "constituents" you will be able to see all the companies. There are presently only 317 companies that are on the broad list. You will also find smaller lists of the companies with the top dividend growth rates, top yields, etc. They also have list for Canadian companies and international dividend paying stocks. This is a very good resource for compiling "watch lists" in my opinion.
Here are a few of my observations about the lists:
- As expected, many of the companies are financials or utilities. However, there are a broad range of industries represented and plenty of diversification to be had.
- If you are concerned about cap-size then you will be happy to know that the list is very balanced. There are lots of micro caps and on up the list to mega caps. You could diversify across cap-sizes as well.
- I calculated the dividend growth rate for many of the companies I had not heard of. Some of them have increased dividends for 10 years or more but the rate of increase is sometimes 2% or less which is below inflation. Those types of stocks are not really on my radar as it seems they are only increasing their dividends as a way to stay on this list.
Ex-Dividend.com is an excellent resource for pure dividend data. They list dividend increases and decreases, ex-dividend dates, payment dates, payment amounts, some historical data, and they have news feeds for dividend info. Note: this is a paid subscription site for complete access to all the info. The only free info is the dividend info associated with the AMEX and the lists of dividend increases and decreases. To get info on the NYSE or Nasdaq you will have to subscribe. It is presently $29.95 per month. (There is a free 7 day trial if you are interested in that.)
My own personal favorite for finding historical dividend data is none other than Yahoo Finance. If you do a quote for any stock, then click the "Historical Prices" link you will then see a radio button for "Dividends Only". Select your date range and then click Get Prices and it will display the historical dividend list, adjusted for splits. This data only goes back to roughly 1970 but it is useful for seeing recent dividend trends.
I hope you find those useful. One of the hardest parts of stock selection is getting quality data.
"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves."
-Albert Einstein
Disclaimer: this post is for informational purposes ONLY. Please read the disclaimer before even thinking about relying on me to make a financial decision!
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