Relieving the Pain of Dividend Growth Investors

By Torsten Tiedt

Dividend growth investing is a pain, because it is much more difficult to find solid dividend growth stocks than it should be.

In this guest article, I'll explain why I think finding solid dividend growth stocks is harder than it should be and how I tackled this problem for me (and for you!).

DivGro Pulse: January 2018

This month I'm celebrating the 5^th anniversary of DivGro!

I founded DivGro in January 2013 to focus on dividend growth (DG) investing. Since then, my portfolio steadily has grown well beyond what I could have imagined!

Just this week, I hit my 10^th home run with DivGro, when my position McDonald's (MCD) crossed 100% in total returns. And, without giving everything away, on Friday three more positions earned home run status after some extraordinary price action! This market sure looks toppy now...

Once a month, I write a pulse article that focuses on strategy and monitors the health of my portfolio. I update the fair value estimates of DG stocks in my portfolio and use the information to identify undervalued DG stocks suitable for further investment. Finding undervalued stocks is quite challenging these days!

20 Dividend Increases: January 15-19, 2018 (Part 2: The Remaining Sectors)

Companies that regularly raise their dividend payments show confidence in future earnings growth potential. In the past week, 20 companies on my watch list declared dividend increases, including two of my DivGro holdings.

Part 1 covered dividend increases for the Energy and Real Estate. This is Part 2, which presents dividend increases for the remaining sectors.

As a bonus, I include a summary of available ex-dividend dates for the next two weeks.

20 Dividend Increases: January 15-19, 2018 (Part 1: Energy and Real Estate Sectors)

Companies that regularly raise their dividend payments show confidence in future earnings growth potential. In the past week, 20 companies on my watch list declared dividend increases, including 2 of my DivGro holdings.

Part 1 covers dividend increases for the Energy and Real Estates, while Part 2 will cover dividend increases for the remaining sectors.

As a bonus, I include a summary of available ex-dividend dates for the next two weeks.

Home Run Number 10

I use the term home run to describe any position in DivGro that has crossed the 100% mark in total return.

Before becoming a dividend growth investor, I sold half of my shares when a position doubled. I justified the action by saying that now I'm playing with "house" money.

I no longer think that way. Most of my positions are income-generating dividend growth stocks and cutting my income in half just because the position has doubled, seems silly. Now I'm more than happy to hold my home runs and to continue collecting their growing dividends.

Today, I'm happy to announce my 10^th home run in DivGro!

10 Dividend Growth Stocks For January 2018

The CCC list is a wonderful source for dividend growth investors. Compiled and updated every month by David Fish, the CCC list contains U.S. companies with at least 5 consecutive years of higher dividend payments. The accompanying spreadsheet provides key statistics of the CCC stocks.

In my monthly 10 Dividend Growth Stocks series, I identify 10 CCC stocks for further research. To create the list, I rank a selection of the CCC stocks and assign a 7-star rating to each stock. Stocks rated 5 stars or better are worthy of further analysis.

This month, I decided to select CCC stocks by compiling popular dividend growth stocks and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) from recent Seeking Alpha articles, and stocks in my DivGro portfolio.

4 Dividend Increases: January 1-12, 2018

Companies that regularly raise their dividend payments show confidence in future earnings growth potential. I like monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list because I consider such stocks to be candidates for further analysis.

In the past 2 weeks, 4 companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends.

Only one company announced a double-digit dividend increase. However, two of the remaining stocks have increased their dividends multiple times in the past year and their year-over-year dividend increases are double-digit percentage increases, too.

Recent Sell: Cisco Systems

On 3 January, the February $34 covered call options I sold against my Cisco Systems (CSCO) shares got exercised early.

CSCO traded ex-dividend on 4 January, so the options holder decided to call my shares away just in time to grab the dividend. This is one of the drawbacks of American-style options – they can be exercised before expiration.

With CSCO trading in the money, I was well aware of the possibility that the options could be assigned. However, I was traveling from South Africa via Dubai to San Francisco (an exhausting 30 hours of traveling time!) and could not make a defensive move in time. Fortunately, I still own 200 CSCO shares, so I collected the dividend on those shares.

This article presents a summary of my CSCO trades and a final profit/loss analysis.

Quarterly Review of DivGro, Q4-2017

Welcome to the 20^th quarterly review of DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks. This month I'm celebrating the fifth anniversary of DivGro!

I have some challenging goals for 2018, including increasing projected annual dividend income to $18,500, earning $18,000 in dividend income, and securing $12,000 in options income.

Before we focus on the future, though, let's look at what happened with DivGro in Q4-2017.

Top Holdings of Real Estate ETFs

Analysing the top holdings of similar ETFs is insightful. Publicly-available data on the top holdings and assets under management allow me to rank these holdings and to construct a virtual portfolio, which I can compare with my own portfolio. It helps me to identify candidates for further analysis and possible investment.

Recently, I analyzed the top holdings of 32 dividend ETFs and presented a ranked list of the top 50 dividend stocks held in these ETFs. No Real Estate sector stocks made the top 50 list because real estate stocks are commonly organized as real estate investment trusts (REITs), which have their own ETF category.

In this article, I analyze 15 real estate ETFs that focus specifically on the U.S. Real Estate markets. I present the top holdings held in these ETFs along with key statistics and fair value estimates from Morningstar.

More Than 500 Dividend Increases in 2017

I monitor dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks to identify candidates for further analysis. Companies can only increase their dividends regularly if earnings grow sufficiently.

In 2017, I reported on more than 500 dividend increases from companies on my watch list. Exactly 497 companies on my watch list increased their dividends, but 42 stocks increased their dividend more than once in 2017, so the number of increases tops 500.

This article provides a summary of the dividend increases in 2017. I share the average dividend increase and identify the top increases, overall and by sector.

Monthly Review of DivGro: December 2017

Welcome to the last monthly review in 2017 of DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks!

The goal of these monthly reviews is to share updates to my portfolio and to provide a summary of dividends collected. I also consider the impact on DivGro's projected annual dividend income (PADI).

Quarter-ending months are exceptional months for dividend growth investors, as many companies tend to pay dividends in these months. In December, I received dividends totaling $2,245.05 from 31 stocks in my portfolio. Incredibly, this is just 51¢ more than my previous record total of $2,244.54.

So I'm happy to report that December was another record month for DivGro!