Yields of S&P's Dividend Aristocrats

The S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats is part of the S&P Dividend Aristocrats index series. This constituents in this index have followed a policy of raising dividends each year for at least 25 consecutive years.

In addition, all the constituents are members of the S&P Composite 1500 Index. The stocks are equally weighted and are re-weighted quarterly.

The constituents of the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats are:

Company	Ticker	Dividend Yield (as of June 26, 2009)
ABM Industries	ABM	2.90%
Automatic Data Processing Inc.	ADP	3.81%
Air Products & Chemicals	APD	2.76%
Associated Banc-Corp.	ASBC	1.50%
Avery Dennison Corp.	AVY	6.46%
BB&T Corporation	BBT	2.65%
Black Hills	BKH	6.16%
Bemis Company	BMS	3.64%
Cincinnati Financial	CINF	7.05%
Clorox Co.	CLX	3.58%
Carlisle Companies	CSL	2.52%
Century Telephone	CTL	8.92%
Diebold, Inc.	DBD	3.87%
Dover Corp.	DOV	3.03%
Consolidated Edison	ED	6.37%
Emerson Electric	EMR	3.99%
Eaton Vance	EV	2.28%
Fulton Financial Corp.	FULT	2.28%
Gannett Co.	GCI	4.29%
General Electric	GE	3.40%
Johnson Controls	JCI	2.44%
Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	3.46%
Kimberly-Clark	KMB	4.58%
Coca Cola Co.	KO	3.41%
Leggett & Platt	LEG	6.72%
Lilly (Eli) & Co.	LLY	5.56%
Legg Mason	LM	0.47%
McDonalds Corp.	MCD	3.51%
McGraw-Hill	MHP	3.04%
3M Company	MMM	3.44%
M&T Bank Corp.	MTB	5.70%
National Fuel Gas	NFG	3.75%
National Penn Bancshares Inc.	NPBC	4.09%
Northwest Natural Gas	NWN	3.59%
Pitney-Bowes	PBI	6.56%
PepsiCo Inc.	PEP	3.29%
Pfizer, Inc.	PFE	4.21%
Piedmont Natl Gas	PNY	4.48%
PPG Industries	PPG	4.87%
RPM International Inc.	RPM	5.66%
Synovus Financial	SNV	1.27%
Sonoco Products	SON	4.55%
Supervalu Inc.	SVU	5.15%
Stanley Works	SWK	3.76%
Integrys Energy Group, Inc.	TEG	9.29%
U.S. Bancorp	USB	1.11%
V.F. Corp.	VFC	4.24%
Vectren Corporation	VVC	5.69%
WGL Holdings, Inc.	WGL	4.56%
Wilmington Trust Corp.	WL	5.13%

Consumer staple stocks such as KMB, JNJ, MCD, etc. are excellent dividend payers and long-term value stocks. Financials will still experience wild rides due to worsening economic conditions. There may be a few surprises in future quarterly earnings reports as some banks may announce additional new losses. Many banks have also reduced their dividend payouts significantly over the last year.

Comments

[BlueOkie:]

The list has gotten smaller as more have cut dividends this year. I'm sure it'll get a revision.

Jun 30 08:24 AM

[David Van K...:]

Investors need to understand S&P's methodology in constructing its dividend lists. Many dividend investors treat the lists as imprimaturs of dividend safety and assured dividend growth. They shouldn’t.

S&P updates its lists once per year, in December. That means the list ignores events that happen earlier in the year, such as announced dividend cuts. The fact of annual updating is not prominently displayed (although it is there in the various pamphlets and explanations S&P provides). Thus the lists can be very misleading, because S&P describes their lists' constituents as companies "...that have followed a policy of consistently increasing dividends every year for at least 25 consecutive years."

The poster child for this year’s most misleading company on the Dividend Aristocrats lists is GE. The company announced early in the year that they intend to cut their dividend later in 2009. That doesn’t matter to S&P. GE still appears on both the Dividend Aristocrat and High-Yield Dividend Aristocrat lists (as shown in the article above).

Another fake-out factor is that S&P's lists do not include companies whose dividend payout rises each year unless the company declares an increase each year. This is a subtle but important nuance. If a company raises its dividend in the middle of every other year, its total dividend payout will be higher each year. (If you don't believe that, work out an example on the back of an envelope.) Such a company will not appear on S&P's lists, even though the company's dividend is rising each year.

Jun 30 09:14 AM

[Steve20423:]

S&P Lists seem like a reliable place to start a search. But doing due diligence can be tedious. Is there a better place to search for and sort the requisite data?

Jun 30 03:16 PM