That wasn't enough for me, however. I have noticed that there are a lot of great dividend paying companies which are not as established as the Dividend Aristocrat family of indexes. The only reason why they didn't come under my radar screen was simply because they had raised their annual payment for less than 25 years. These stocks do have the possibility of becoming the next dividend aristocrats.
My previous research showed that companies stay about 6.5 years on average in the dividend aristocrats index. The current aging of the aristocrats was about 36 years. Thus, in order to take full advantage of increasing dividend payment for a maximum amount of time, I believe that it pays to buy stocks, which could become the next aristocrats, before they join the list.
The list that caught my attention was the US Broad Dividend Achievers list, prepared by Mergent Inc. It is broader than the S&P 1500 dividend achievers list that I have previously written about. To quote from the company's website:
"The Broad Dividend Achievers™ Index is designed to track the performance of
U.S. publicly traded of dividend paying companies that meet the "Dividend Achievers" requirements. To become eligible for inclusion in the Index, a company must be incorporated
in the United States or its territories, trade on the NYSE, NASDAQ or AMEX, and have increased its annual regular dividend payments for the last ten or more consecutive years. In addition, Mergent requires that a stock's average daily cash volume exceed $500,000 per day in Nov. and Dec. prior to reconsitution."
U.S. publicly traded of dividend paying companies that meet the "Dividend Achievers" requirements. To become eligible for inclusion in the Index, a company must be incorporated
in the United States or its territories, trade on the NYSE, NASDAQ or AMEX, and have increased its annual regular dividend payments for the last ten or more consecutive years. In addition, Mergent requires that a stock's average daily cash volume exceed $500,000 per day in Nov. and Dec. prior to reconsitution."
This index has managed to outperform the S&P 500 over the past 10 years by 1% annually on average by performing better than average in 4 of the past 10 years.
According to Mergent Inc, a $10,000 investment at the end of 1997, would be worth about $16,148 by the end of 2007.
There's an ETF, which tracks the index. The Ticker is PFM.Relevant Articles:
- Dividend Champions Watchlist
- Current Aging of the Dividend Aristocrats
- Historical changes of the S&P Dividend Aristocrats
- Why do I like Dividend Aristocrats?