Updates to Dividend Aristocrats and Dividend Kings Lists

Dividend increas­es are amaz­ing­ly pow­er­ful in their impact on the com­pound­ing of div­i­dend “pay­checks,” espe­cial­ly for peo­ple with a long term focus on build­ing wealth. Increases com­pound over time, but also ensure pro­tec­tion of the div­i­dend “pay­check” from infla­tion.

A New Dividend King

There are cur­rent­ly only 19 div­i­dend kings, com­pa­nies with 50+ con­sec­u­tive years of div­i­dend increas­es.

California Water Services ($CWT) was added to the list recent­ly.

One of my favorite div­i­dend newslet­ters, Sure Dividend, has an analy­sis of all 19 div­i­dend kings as well as a spread­sheet to down­load the list of div­i­dend kings.

Two New Dividend Aristocrats

Dividend aris­to­crats have “only” 25+ years of con­sec­u­tive div­i­dend increas­es. There are now 51 div­i­dend aris­to­crats, with two new addi­tions:

1. General Dynamics ($GD)
2. Federal Reality Investment Trust ($FRT)

A Dividend Aristocrat Cuts its Dividend

One com­pa­ny, HCP ($HCP), has reduced its div­i­dend and been removed from the list.

I like to point this out because noth­ing, even div­i­dend aris­to­crat div­i­dend rais­es, is ever risk free. The impor­tant thing when devel­op­ing and rein­forc­ing an invest­ing habit though is not just how well you do, but how well you can make sense of what hap­pens. When a div­i­dend is cut, espe­cial­ly from a div­i­dend aris­to­crat, it makes sense — results haven’t been sus­tain­able. This in com­par­i­son to a stock price fluc­tu­a­tion that seems dis­so­ci­at­ed from the com­pa­ny’s per­for­mance.

Have you ever heard a com­pa­ny that posts good results, but the stock price goes down? Doesn’t seem to make sense, right? But it might — maybe the stock was trad­ing on “expec­ta­tions” and these results were good, but did­n’t meet expec­ta­tions, and so it falls… this is the sort of stuff indi­vid­ual investors can’t real­ly keep up with, and on the sur­face is con­fus­ing and demo­ti­vat­ing. That’s why track­ing the long term per­for­mance of div­i­dend increas­es makes a good mea­sure — it’s not sus­cep­ti­ble to the “mys­tery of” expec­ta­tions-dri­ven volatil­i­ty.

You can down­load the full list of div­i­dend aris­to­crats and some basic (but use­ful) analy­sis from Sure Dividend.

If you want to learn my unique met­rics for track­ing div­i­dend rais­es and long term invest­ing suc­cess, sub­scribe to my free email course where you will learn about four key met­rics for track­ing div­i­dend port­fo­lios, how to get start­ed with as lit­tle as $10, and receive a spread­sheet tem­plate for track­ing your own port­fo­lio once you do: