That would be just the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats
Just glancing at this article from December 2008. I see PFE and SVU no longer qualify.
____________________________________________________________
Investing in the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats
Written by Nickel
Ever heard of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats? Don’t feel bad if you haven’t — I hadn’t heard the term myself until I ran across it yesterday. The Dividend Aristocrats are comprised of S&P 500 constituents that have increased their dividend payouts for 25 consecutive years. Miss just once and you’re out. In other words, these are the bluest of the blue chips.
What’s the point?
In terms of performance, this Aristocrats have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 3, 5, 10, and 15 years while exhibiting a lower standard deviation across all of these time periods (data as of 11/30/2008). In other words, they provide better performance and lower volatility than the S&P 500.
In terms of diversification, the Aristocrats span ten different sectors with both growth and value holdings. This composition contrasts with most other dividend-yield based portfolios, which tend to be heavily weighted toward financials and utilities, and often have a strong value tilt.
How to invest in the Dividend Aristocrats
As far as I’m aware, there’s no way to invest in these stocks other than to buy them directly and then rebalance (to an equal weighting as well as to reflect changes to the index) annually. That being said, there’s an ETF that trades under the ticker symbol SDY that tracks the “High Yield Dividend Aristocrats.” This index bears some similarity to the Dividend Aristocrats, but it’s not the same thing.
Who are the Dividend Aristocrats?
Sound interesting? Here’s the complete list of Dividend Aristocrats for 2009…
3M Company (MMM)
Abbott Labs (ABT)
AFLAC Inc. (AFL)
Air Products & Chemicals (APD)
Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM)
Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP)
Avery Dennison Corp. (AVY)
Bard (C.R.) Inc. (BCR)
BB&T Corporation (BBT)
Becton, Dickinson (BDX)
Bemis Co. (BMS)*
Century Telephone (CTL)
Chubb Corp. (CB)
Cincinnati Financial (CINF)
Clorox Co. (CLX)
Coca Cola Co. (KO)
Consolidated Edison (ED)
Dover Corp. (DOV)
Emerson Electric (EMR)
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)
Family Dollar Stores (FDO)
Gannett Co. (GCI)
General Electric (GE)
Grainger (W.W.) Inc. (GWW)
Integrys Energy Group, Inc. (TEG)
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
Johnson Controls (JCI)
Kimberly-Clark (KMB)
Legg Mason (LM)
Leggett & Platt (LEG)*
Lilly (Eli) & Co. (LLY)
Lowe’s Cos. (LOW)
M&T Bank Corp. (MTB)
McDonald’s Corp. (MCD)
McGraw-Hill (MHP)
PepsiCo Inc. (PEP)
Pfizer, Inc. (PFE)
Pitney-Bowes (PBI)
PPG Industries (PPG)
Procter & Gamble (PG)
Questar Corp. (STR)
Rohm & Haas (ROH)
Sherwin-Williams (SHW)
Sigma-Aldrich (SIAL)
Stanley Works (SWK)
State Street Corp. (STT)
Supervalu Inc. (SVU)
Target Corp. (TGT)
U.S. Bancorp (USB)
V.F. Corp. (VFC)
Walgreen Co. (WAG)
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT)
*Denotes new additions for 2009.
In case you’re curious, the following companies were dropped when the list was updated in December 2008. Not surprisingly, many of them were in the financial sector.
Anheuser Busch (BUD) – Acquired
Bank of America (BAC)
Comerica (CMA)
Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB)
KeyCorp (KEY)
Nucor Corp. (NUE)
Progressive Corp. (PGR)
Regions Financial (RF)
Synovus (SNV)
Wm. Wrigley – Aquired by Mars (privately held)
fivecentnickel.com |
