Dow Jones Dividend Leaders
0.50%April 24 | MyPlanIQ portfolio symbol P_35620
Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The Dow (INDEX: ^DJI) is made up of only 30 stocks which make up
more than a quarter of the U.S. stock market. Given that we are
in troubled times and the large companies are going to be the ones that
will best weather out the storms, we are looking for and grading filters
that help us to come up with stock selection idas.
of the Motley Fool has done some interesting research where he selected and ranked what are arguably the Dow's 10 best dividend-paying stocks.
1. Rank by screening for the Dow's 10 best-yielding stocks:
|
Company |
Dividend Yield |
|---|---|
| AT&T (NYSE: T) | 5.89% |
| Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) | 5.37% |
| Merck (NYSE: MRK) | 4.64% |
| Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) | 4.23% |
| DuPont (NYSE: DD) | 3.66% |
| General Electric (NYSE: GE) | 3.63% |
| Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) | 3.57% |
| Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) | 3.54% |
| Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) | 3.28% |
| Travelers(NYSE: TRV) | 3.24% |
Source: Yahoo! Finance (as of Oct. 17, 2011).
2. Ranked and scored according to sustainability, predictability, and general quality:
- Sustainability -- dividend's size relative to free cash flow per share.
- Predictability -- when the company started paying a dividend.
- Quality -- leverage the Fool's CAPS scores
3. Add upand ran the scores:
|
Company |
FCF Payout Ratio (Points) |
Year Started Paying Dividends (Points) |
Caps Rating (Points) |
Total Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Electric | 26% (10) | 1899 (9) | 4 (8) | 27 |
| Pfizer | 28% (8) | 1939 (6) | 4 (8) | 22 |
| Johnson & Johnson | 48% (5) | 1944 (5) | 5 (10) | 20 |
| DuPont | 59% (3) | 1904 (8) | 4 (8) | 19 |
| Merck | 52% (4) | 1935 (7) | 4 (8) | 19 |
| Travelers | 27% (9) | 1990 (3) | 3 (6) | 18 |
| AT&T | 70% (2) | 1881 (10) | 3 (6) | 18 |
| Verizon Communications | 47% (6) | 1984 (4) | 4 (8) | 18 |
| Intel | 43% (7) | 1992 (2) | 4 (8) | 17 |
| Kraft Foods | 131% (1) | 2001 (1) | 4 (8) | 10 |
Source: S&P Capital IQ, DividendInvestor.com, and Motley Fool CAPS (as of Oct. 13, 2011). FCF payout ratio uses operating cash flow less capital expenditures as measure of free cash flow.
There are three benefits to using this filter
- Using Dow stocks, we know that these are all large organizations
- Dividends are an important component and often reflect well run companies
- We want to be aware of companies using dividends as a means of attracting investors but where performance might be weak
Hopefully this filter will enable us to sort out which look like a good investment.
We will create two portfolios -- the whole group as they are all strong
companies and just the top five to see what differences they throw up.
We will, of course, compare this with out reference dividend bearing ETF
portfolio.