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38 Dividend Growth Utilities With A Solid Finance Basis Or Earnings Growth

If there is one thing every investor can appreciate, it is a growing stream of reliable dividends. With the Federal Reserve aiming to raise rates in December, the rate sensitive stocks have seen some price declines.

One of those rate sensitive sectors is the utility sector. To help investors find some of the best companies in the sector, I began researching those utility stocks with at least 5 straight years of dividend increases. 54 companies are part of the results. That's a huge number which I want to reduce by implementing higher restrictions. More about this method can be read below.

Some investors like to build their dividend growth portfolio with very different strategies. One trick that I have found can help investors stay on track is to mentally consider the costs they will need to pay each month of their life and to set a goal for covering those costs with dividend income.

There is a beautiful irony in being able to cover the costs an investor faces in their life with a dividend check from the same company that is selling them a product. When it comes to the utility companies, it makes sense to have a more diversified portfolio rather than simply owning the utility that covers the investor's primary residence. 

The simple geographic risk of a natural disaster impacting the company and the investor's life at the same time makes it ideal to use a portfolio with at least a few different utility companies, even when the investor wants to use a utility dividend check to pay for their cost.

Utilities are mostly not diversified but you can do it on your own by investing smaller amounts into several sub-industries.

I've created two charts from my dividend growth utility database. The first table lists all utilities with a debt-to-equity ratio below one. I think its also important to have a look at financial ratios, especially when rates go up in the near future.

The second chart gives an overview of dividend growth utilities with a predicted 5% earnings growth for the next five years. It's a more bullish view on future earnings.

Here are the results…


Dividend Growth Utilities With A
Debt-To-Equity Below One (click to enlarge)

Dividend Growth Utilities With A
5 Year Earnings Growth Outlook Over 5% (click to enlarge)