Summary
As top-down investors, we monitor the broader sectors to identify the most promising areas. This month, we see the dividend champions as a whole group are becoming attractive.Many good dividend stocks such as Lowe's, Aflac, and Canadian National Railway are at attractive valuations.Dividend growth investors can take this opportunity to strengthen their holdings with this elite group of stocks in terms of geographical diversification and sector diversification.
Front matters
Today we want to share a chart we've been tracking, thedividend yield of the dividend champions. And you will see that the average yield has surged above its historical mean for the first time in a year. The dividends champs are companies who have been consistently increasing their calendar year dividend payout for at least 25 years consecutively. Thus, I view their dividends as the most reliable indicator of their owners earnings and their dividend yield as the most reliable valuation metric.
As usual, we will get to the point as quickly as possible. And plz make sure, especially for new members, that you reach out to us and ask follow-up questions.
The chart of the month
Without further ado, here is the chart. We have been tracking their performance ourselves over the years using charts like this (because of the reliability of their dividends, they also help us to get an overall feeling of the broader market condition). The chart shows the dividend yield of all the different champs (143 of them as of this month) in the past few years. More specifically, the chart shows the premium/discount of their yields relative to the historical mean.
To wit, the mean yield for this group of stocks is about 2.62% since 2018 and it is about 2.58% since 2011. So as you can see again the consistency and stability of this group of stocks.
As of Aug 31st (the most recent data point on this chart), this group of stocks was yielding 2.57%. Therefore, the current yield is essentially on par with the historical mean. Note that recent market volatility has brought the group to a discount (and very like will do it again). For example, in late June/early July, this was discounted a bit (by about 3% in relative terms)as you can see from the following chart. It's not a huge discount, but not that small either if you consider that this group of stocks are so consistent that their maximum premium/discount had been within about 10% over the past few years (as you can see from the two red lines).
We have not had time to look over all 143 stocks in detail. But by eyeballing the list, many high-quality stocks such as Lowe's (LOW), Aflac (AFL), and Canadian National Railway (CNI) are at attractive valuations. AFL is part of our holdings already and we just wrotean article about CNI (https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/48844541-envision-research/5768161-utma-account-and-canadian-national-railway ) in our last blog article in case you want to see a more detailed discussion. Note that both AFL and CNI can provide geographical diversification (I assume that most of your holdings are primarily exposed to the U.S.).
Comments
Cool nice