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Dividend Achievers List - Part 2 (The American List)
As promised, I will continue with the dividend achievers list, this time around I will talk about strong dividend paying stocks in the largest market in the world, the U.S.
One great source of strong dividend companies in the US is PowerShares High Growth Rate Dividend Achievers (PHJ). Here is an excerpt from the Powershares site that describes PHJ:
The PowerShares High Growth Rate Dividend Achievers™ Portfolio (Fund) seeks to replicate, before fees and expenses, the High Growth Rate Dividend Achievers™ Index, which is designed to identify the 100 Dividend Achiever™ companies with the highest 10 year annual dividend growth rate. These companies have increased their annual dividend for ten or more consecutive fiscal years. The portfolio is rebalanced quarterly and reconstituted annually.
I always find it helpful to take a look at ETF/fund lists to get some stock ideas. If you are not comfortable buying individual stocks, why not buy the ETF/fund itself and own ALL of the strong dividend paying stocks for a low management fee?
If you’re too lazy to check out the Powershares site for yourself, here is a list of some of PHJ’s top holdings:
| Company | Symbol | Current Yield |
| American International Group | AIG | 0.95% |
| McDonald’s Corp | MCD | 2.31% |
| U.S. Bancorp | USB | 4.53% |
| United Technologies | UTX | 1.65% |
| Home Depot | HD | 2.31% |
| Bank of America | BAC | 4.48% |
| Wells Fargo & Co | WFC | 3.25% |
| Pfizer Inc | PFE | 4.65% |
| Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | 2.42% |
| Lowes | LOW | 0.63% |
| Walmart | WMT | 1.39% |
| Citigroup | C | 4.29% |
| Medtronic | MDT | 0.89% |
| Automatic Data Processing | ADP | 1.89% |
| Freddie Mac | FRE | 3.21% |
| Washington Mutual | WM | 5.17% |
There are quite a few strong dividend payers in the US, but the ones listed above are the creme of the crop and have increased their payouts at least once / year for the past 10 years.What I regularly do is keep a watching the dividend payers for dips in their stock price.The stocks that I highlighted in bold are stocks that Warren Buffett holds in his portfolio. Perhaps something to look into further.
For Canadians, it is more efficient to hold U.S dividend payers INSIDE of your RRSP. Please see my article on dividend taxes here.
Hope you enjoyed the dividend series. Happy Investing!
Disclaimer: I own some of the stocks listed in this article. The stocks listed in this article are not stock recommendations, buy at your own risk.


















7 Comments, Comment or Ping
1. Qubikal
“What I regularly do is keep a watching the dividend payers for dips in their stock price.”
Can you further explain what the monitoring of dips in stock prices does? Does this mean that this is when you buy them?
Mar 13th, 2007 @ 10:54 am
2. FrugalTrader
Qubikal: Sorry, I should have been more clear. When the price of a strong dividend paying stock dips/decreases, the yield will go up. I usually wait until the yeild raises a certain level before purchasing.
For example, CIBC is currently paying a $3.08/share dividend. It’s current price/share is $102.00, thus the dividend yield being: 3.08/102 = 3.02%. For me personally, I will wait until CIBC has a yield of around 3.5%-3.7% before purchasing the stock. This would work out to be a stock price of around $3.08/3.5% = $88 to $83($3.08/3.7%) at current dividend payouts.
Make sense?
Mar 13th, 2007 @ 11:08 am
4. Qubikal
Thanks for the explanation.
A great time to buy then would usually be the day after the ex-dividend date, as this is the date when all shareholders of record on the day will receive a dividend. On the next day, the share price will adjust for the payments that is promised to be paid.
Mar 13th, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
5. Blain Reinkensmeyer
“For Canadians, it is more efficient to hold U.S dividend payers INSIDE of your RRSP”
Good call here FT, you canadians know how to take advantage of the exchange!
Mar 15th, 2007 @ 12:04 am
6. silverm
“For Canadians, it is more efficient to hold U.S dividend payers INSIDE of your RRSP.”
One thing to watch out for is the currency conversion rate. Most brokers converts your US dividends into Canadian currency. If you want to reinvest the dividends back to US, they’re converted back again. This can cost you as much as 2.5% to do the double conversions. I hold Canadian income trusts first inside RRSP. If I have more room, then US dividend payers.
Mar 15th, 2007 @ 2:31 am
7. Dividend Investor
You might also consider the Dividend Aristocrats and High-Yield Dividend Aristocrats. The things I don’t like about dividend etf’s are several : http://dividendgrowth.blogspot.com/2008/01/are-dividend-etfs-for-you.html
Jan 23rd, 2008 @ 6:11 pm
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