Dividend Farming with DRiPs

As a fan of dividend paying companies, particularly those with long histories of dividend payouts, there’s no more valuable resource I’m aware of than DripInvesting.org and its Tools page.  If you want to find dividend champions, contenders, and challengers with stable records of dividend payments, the top of the Information column on this page is the place to start.

There you’ll find a regularly updated spreadsheet listing all U.S. companies paying dividends according to the following consecutive years of dividend distributions:

•         Champions:  25 or more years
•          Contenders:  10 to 24 years
•          Challengers:  5 to 9 years

The latest update to this selection, often referred to as the CCC, is October 1, 2018.  Accordingly there are 127 Champions, 209 Contenders, and 560 Challengers on the list.  Several of the Champions have paid dividends for more than 60 consecutive years.  What’s more, you can find firms on the list that have increased their dividend payments each year for many consecutive years.

The beauty of this tool is that it incorporates far more than company name and number of years of dividend payments.  It also includes the:

•         Stock price
•          Yield
•          Last dividend increase
•          Dividend growth rate over various periods
•          Earnings per share payout ratio
•          Price to earnings ratio
•          Price to book

…and other metrics helpful in evaluating the firm’s fit to your portfolio and investing style.  In short, the CCC is a great filter to help you locate solid dividend stocks to investigate further.  The additional due diligence involves another handy dividend farming tool I’ll discuss in a future blog.

Until then, it doesn’t hurt to spend time sifting through the CCC list to get started as a Dividend Farmer.

The thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of the author, who is not a financial professional.  Opinions expressed here should not be considered investment advice.  They are presented for discussion and entertainment purposes only.  For specific investment advice or assistance, please contact a registered investment advisor, licensed broker, or other financial professional.