36 Dividend Increases: April 23-27, 2018 (Part 1: Energy And Utilities Sectors)

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

This week, 36 companies on my watch list declared dividend increases, including four of the stocks I own. Part 1 presents dividend increases for stocks in the Energy and Utilities Sectors. Part 2 will cover Financials Sector stocks, while Part 3 will cover the remaining sectors.

DivGro Pulse: April 2018

DivGro Pulse is a series of articles that focuses on the strategy of dividend growth (DG) investing. My objectives are to reduce the risk, increase the diversification, and improve the balance of my portfolio holdings.

I update fair value estimates for every DG stock in my portfolio and look for undervalued stocks suitable for further investment. Similarly, I look for overvalued stocks and determine if it makes sense to hold the stock or to sell it.

Yield channel charts are great visual tools for DG stock valuation. I create yield channel charts for stocks that appear to be undervalued or overvalued. As long as the stock price remains inside the yield channel, no immediate action is needed.

Monthly Review of DivGro: March 2018

Welcome to the monthly review of DivGro, my portfolio of dividend growth stocks. The goal of these reviews is to provide a summary of dividends received and to detail buy and sell transactions. I also consider the impact on DivGro's projected annual dividend income (PADI).

In March, I opened two new positions. Five DivGro stocks announced dividend increases in March. The net result of these changes is that PADI increased by about 1.3% in March. Year over year, PADI increased by 43.3%.

As for dividend income, in March I received dividends totaling $2,523 from 30 stocks in my portfolio, a year over year increase of 35%. So far in 2018, I've collected $4,578 in dividends or about 25% of my 2018 goal of $18,000.

22 Dividend Increases: April 16-20, 2018 (Part 2: Remaining Sectors)

Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch is one way to identify candidates for further analysis. I look for announcements from stocks in the CCC list, but I use several screens to limit the number of stocks to monitor.

For example, I require a dividend yield of at least 1.5% for Dividend Challengers and a dividend yield of at least 1.0% for Dividend Contenders and Dividend Champions.

In the past week, 22 companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends, including one of the stocks I hold in my portfolio. Part 1 presented dividend increases of stocks in the Energy and Financials sectors. This is Part 2, which covers dividend increase announcements from the remaining sectors.

22 Dividend Increases: April 16-20, 2018 (Part 1: Energy And Financials Sectors)

I monitor dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks to identify candidates for further analysis. Companies that regularly raise their dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings. I look for announcements from stocks in the CCC list, but I use several screens to limit the number of stocks to monitor. For example, I only monitor companies with market caps greater than $500M.

In the past week, 22 companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends. I own one of these stocks. Part 1 of this article presents dividend increases from stocks in the Energy and Financials sectors. See the upcoming Part 2 for dividend increase announcements from the remaining sectors.

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

Options Update: March 2018 (Part 2)

Part 1 of my monthly options update article covered the usual options trades I executed in March.

There is one unusual trade I made that is the topic of Part 2. It is a combination trade with a short put and a long call. The combo trade is net credit and uses LEAPs (long-term equity anticipation securities) to give me exposure to long-term price changes.

I added options trading to DivGro in June 2016 to leverage the equity in my portfolio and to generate more income. The options income allows me to buy more dividend growth stocks and so generate extra dividend income.

Options Update: March 2018 (Part 1)

Welcome to my monthly options update article!

I write these updates to keep track of options trades in my DivGro portfolio. I sell puts on stocks I'd like to own, or covered calls on stocks in my portfolio. Sometimes, I execute more speculative options trades, too.

Each update serves as a status report on the open options and the obligations I have. I also report new trades and provide a running tally of DivGro's options income to date.

While DivGro remains focused on dividend growth investing, I added options trading in June 2016 to leverage the equity in my portfolio and to generate more income. In turn, this allows me to buy more dividend growth stocks and boost my dividend income.

10 Dividend Growth Stocks For April 2018

The CCC stocks is a list of dividend growth stocks with at least five consecutive years of higher dividend payments. Updated monthly by David Fish, the list of CCC stocks contains more than 800 dividend growth stocks trading on U.S. exchanges.

In my monthly 10 Dividend Growth Stocks series, I identify 10 CCC stocks worthy of further research. An in-depth analysis of every stock on the CCC list would be a monumental task, so I trim the CCC stocks to a smaller number of candidate stocks.

I use different screens every month for variation. This month, I screened for CCC stocks using a set of filters I call the sevens filters:

Home Run Number 15

Just more than a month ago, I reported on DivGro's Home Run Number 14, Netflix (NFLX). Recall that I use the term home run to describe any position in DivGro that crosses the 100% mark in total returns.

In that article, I identified two stocks that most likely would become Home Run #15. Aflac (AFL) was the forerunner by the slightest of margins, but I said I wouldn't be surprised if Intel (INTC) ended up winning the race. INTC had the momentum with 1-year returns of about 41%, versus AFL's 23%.

Today I reveal the winner, which officially becomes the 15^th home run of DivGro.

7 Dividend Increases: April 9-13, 2018

I monitor dividend increases for dividend growth stocks to identify candidates for further analysis. Companies can only raise their dividends regularly if earnings grow sufficiently.

I limit the monitoring to stocks in the CCC list and I use several screens to limit the number of stocks further. For example, I only cover stocks with a market cap exceeding $500M.

This past week, seven companies on my watchlist announced dividend increases, including one of the stocks I own in my portfolio.

Why I Added Comcast To My Dividend Growth Portfolio

It has been quite a while since I last wrote a stock analysis.

In the March edition of my 10 Dividend Growth Stocks series of articles on Seeking Alpha, two stocks that I did not own ranked in the top 10: Comcast (CMCSA) and Pfizer (PFE).

I previously own PFE but sold the stock in November 2017 when call options I had sold got exercised. Rather than reopen a position in PFE, I decided to build my cash reserves and look for other opportunities. PFE consistently ranked below #40 in my monthly pulse articles and received either 3 or 4 stars ratings.

But CMCSA looked interested, especially following a 21% increase in its quarterly dividend payment and a sudden drop in its share price after news came out of a possible offer to buy UK satellite television provider Sky.

3 Dividend Increases: April 2-6, 2018

I like monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks because I consider such stocks to be candidates for further analysis. Companies can only increase their dividends regularly if earnings grow sufficiently.

I limit the monitoring to stocks in the CCC list and I use several screens to limit the number of stocks further. For example, I don't cover stocks that are being required or over-the-counter or pink sheet stocks.

This past week, three companies on my watchlist announced dividend increases.

Recent Sell: Northrop Grumman

In my latest Pulse article, I presented a yield channel chart of Northrop Grumman (NOC) that clearly shows that the stock is trading at an overvalued yield when looking at historical yield patterns.

Furthermore, NOC is trading at a 30% premium to my fair value estimate and yields only 1.3% at $349.12 per share. The stock's premium price is one reason that it is ranked #32 of 47 dividend growth (DG) stocks in my portfolio.

As one of my home run stocks, it is tough to sell NOC when it is performing so well, but my yield channel chart suggests that now is a good time to do so. This article presents a short summary of the trades and dividends received as well as a net profit analysis.

6 Dividend Increases: March 26-30, 2018

Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch is one way to identify candidates for further analysis. Companies that regularly raise dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings.

I monitor a selection of David Fish's CCC stocks using several screens to limit the number of stocks to monitor. For example, I require yields of at least 1.5% for Dividend Challengers and yields of at least 1.0% for Dividend Contenders and Dividend Champions.

Six stocks on my watch list announced increases last week. Three stocks announced double-digit percentage increases.