April 2016 List Of Dividend Aristocrats

April 2016 List Of Dividend Aristocrats by Ben Reynolds, Sure Dividend

The Dividend Aristocrats Index is comprised of 50 stocks that have paid dividends for 25+ consecutive years.

Already know about Dividend Aristocrats? Click here to download your Dividend Aristocrats Excel Spreadsheet now. Keep reading this article to learn more.

In addition to requiring 25+ years of consecutive dividend increases, Dividend Aristocrats must also:

Be members of the S&P 500 Index
Meet certain size and liquidity requirements.

What’s the big deal about being a Dividend Aristocrat?

The Dividend Aristocrats Index has outperformed the market by a wide margin over the last decade.

Source: S&P Dividend Aristocrats Fact Sheet

It’s interesting to note that the Dividend Aristocrats index is overweight consumer products companies, industrial, and health care. A sector breakdown of the Dividend Aristocrats index is shown below:

Source: S&P Dividend Aristocrats Fact Sheet

List of All 50 Dividend Aristocrats

The free spreadsheet below lists all 50 Dividend Aristocrats as of January 2016.

The list can be sorted by:

Dividend Yield
Standard Deviation
Growth Rate
Payout Ratio
And more…

Click here to download your Dividend Aristocrats Excel Spreadsheet now

The financial metrics included in the spreadsheets are the same metrics used for the buy rules in The 8 Rules of Dividend Investing.

A brief explanation of each metric is below.

Dividend Yield

Dividend yield is calculated as 4 x most recent dividend / current price. This is the standard calculation for dividend yield and shows what percentage of dividend income you can expect on your investment in the first year (assuming no dividend increases or reductions).

Standard Deviation

Standard deviation in the spreadsheet above is calculated over a stock’s 10 year price history (when available). Long-term price histories are used to reduce the effects of unusually high or low volatility in the recent past.

Stocks with low price standard deviations have historically outperformed the market. Better price returns have come with lower ‘risk’ as defined by academics due to lower stock price standard deviation.

I don’t believe standard deviation to be a true measure of risk, but it is a good proxy for measuring real risk. It has worked to improve returns historically. The historical record should not be ignored.

Growth Rate

The growth rates used in this article are either Sure Dividend’s own forecasts for future expected growth rates, or 10 year historical earnings-per-share growth rates.

Payout Ratio

The payout ratio is calculated as last dividend payment x 4 / trailing-twelve-month earnings per share. Adjusted earnings per share are used when applicable instead of GAAP earnings per share to minimize the effects of short-term or one-time events on the payout ratio.

Total Return

Total return is a calculated as a stock’s dividend yield plus its expected growth rate. The higher the total return, the better. Click here to learn more about total returns.

P/E Ratio

The P/E Ratio (price-to-earnings ratio) is used to determine the relative value of an investment. It is calculated as current share price divided by 12 month earnings-per-share. The lower the P/E ratio, the better.

10 Year Historical P/E Ratio

This is the historical average P/E ratio over the last decade (when available). If less than 10 years of data are available (as is the case with ABBV, ABT, and MHFI due to spin-offs), the maximum amount of years available is used. Comparing the historical P/E ratio to the current P/E ratio is a quick way to get a ‘ballpark estimate’ of if a company is currently overvalued or undervalued.

Modified PEG

PEG stands for price-to-earnings-to-growth. The PEG ratio is calculated as P/E Ratio divided by (Growth Rate x 100). It shows the relative value of a company in relation to its growth rate. The modified PEG ratio uses total return instead of growth rate; it takes into account the effects of dividends. The modified PEG ratio is calculated as P/E Ratio divided by (Total Return x 100). The lower the PEG, the better. Click here to learn more about the Modified PEG Ratio.

The Dividend Aristocrats Series

The Dividend Aristocrats list Excel spreadsheet download in this article is a quick-and-easy way to generate investment ideas for dividend growth investors.

Sure Dividend analyzes all 50 Dividend Aristocrats in detail once a year.

Click here for the most recent analysis.

The most recent analysis is from October 2015 through January 2016. Links to each and every Dividend Aristocrat analysis are below:

Click here to download a free PDF of the Top 10 Dividend Aristocrats as ranked by The 8 Rules of Dividend Investing.