Dividend Kings: An Update Stocks With The Longest Dividend Growth History

A dividend king is a company that has managed to increase dividends to shareholders for at least fifty years in a row.

There are only a handful of these companies worldwide, most of them being US based. 

A company that has managed to increase dividends each year for over half a century has a stable business model that has endured a lot over a long period of time.

As investors who want to live off dividends in retirement, we want to concentrate on quality businesses that operate in industries with significant competitive advantages.

This will allow those businesses to grow earnings and pay higher dividends over time. Raising dividends for over half a century is no small accomplishment and it is testament to the stability of the business model.

There are currently 18 Dividend Kings. Each Dividend King satisfies the primary requirement to be a Dividend Aristocrat (25 years of consecutive dividend increases) twice over.

The table of contents below lists out all 18 Dividend Kings so you can jump to analysis of each specific company:

These 7 Dividend Kings Still Grow On Sales Basis While Others Shrink

The dividend kings index includes companies which have managed to increase dividends for over fifty consecutive years. 

A company that regularly raises dividends to the tune of fifty years in a row is the type of company that every serious dividend growth investor should study.

It's also important that the dividend kings are able to grow further in order to generate a return for its shareholders. But you must be careful to judge the companies growth. There are several ways to generate earnings growth, remember share buybacks or extraordinary one off items. The true growth comes always from sales growth and higher market share while margins are stable or improve.

It’s always interesting to look at companies’ sales growth, because the usual quarterly focus on whether companies beat or miss consensus earnings estimates doesn’t really mean anything. 

A company can “beat” the (recently lowered) estimates while showing a major earnings decline. A company can also experience a one-time even that can skew earnings for a quarter or a whole year. It’s more useful to look at sales growth. 

Here’s how well the 18 dividend kings succeeded in increasing their sales per share over the past 12 reported months:

The Benefit Of Dividend Growth And Which 17 Stocks Climped To The Top Of The Dividend Champions List

When the market is in a slump, healthy and growing companies will usually keep paying their dividends, offering some relief in challenging times. 

And here's something underappreciated: Dividend payers actually tend to perform really well, too. 

Dividend-paying stocks averaged an annual gain of 9.3% from 1972 through 2014, while non-dividend payers averaged just 2.6%. Want more? According to Fidelity data, from 1993 through 2014, dividends accounted for about 40% of the 10.3% average annual return of the S&P 500.

Attached I've compiled those dividend growers with the longest dividend growth history. Only a couple of stocks managed to grow their dividends over decades without running them flat a year or even reduce them.

17 stocks joined the exclusive club of Dividend Kings. Those stocks managed to raise dividends over a half century without an interruption.

That's a great success if you keep in mind how many recessions come and go over that period of time.

Here is the latest overview of the Dividend Kings List...

17 Dividend Kings Compiled In A Fundamental List

The best dividend growth stock of all time is a dividend king, a company that has raised dividends constantly over time. A dividend king is a company that has managed to increase dividends to shareholders for at least fifty years in a row. 

There are only a handful of these companies worldwide, most of them being US based. A company that has managed to increase dividends each year for over half a century has a stable business model that has endured a lot over a long period of time. 

As investors who want to live off dividends in retirement, we want to concentrate on quality businesses that operate in industries with significant competitive advantages. This will allow those businesses to grow earnings and pay higher dividends over time.

In order to give you a quick overview of the current market valuation and fundamentals of the 18 Dividend Kings, you can find attached a list with more details.

Here are the actual Dividend Kings...

16 Dividend Stocks With The Longest Dividend Growth String

Many investors rely on income from their investment portfolios, and right now, dividend stocks are one of the best sources of income you can find in the investment world.

One sign of success for a dividend stock is its ability to increase its quarterly payout over time, and a select few stocks have put together track records with annual dividend hikes each year for 50 years or more.

Let's take a look at these three dividend giants to see whether they deserve a place in your portfolio.

In total, there are exactly 16 stocks with an uninterrupted dividend growth history of more than 50 years. The highest yielding stock pays 3.9 percent and the lowest yielding stock gives investor a reward of 1.33 percent.

Only two stocks from the investing category have a low forward P/E. Emerson Electric and Parker-Hannifin are the two companies. Check out the full table at the end of this article. I hope the sheet gives you a good overview. If you like, you can make a short comment by sharing your thoughts. Thank you for reading and commenting. 

Here are the top yielding results in detail...

17 Dividend Kings And Which To Own Now

Many investors are familiar with the Dividend Aristocrats Index that consists of companies in the S&P 500 Index that have increased their dividend payouts to shareholders every year for the last 25 years. 

A smaller elite group of these companies have come to be known as “Dividend Kings”, generally used to describe stocks that have had 50 years of consecutive dividend increases. 

A business that can not only adapt to ever-changing business and economic conditions, but also manage to continue to grow its dividend payment for 50 consecutive years may imply a durable competitive advantage and management that is committed to returning capital to shareholders. Today, there are just 16 Dividend Kings. Attached is a nice list of them, check it out.

There are a fair number of studies showing that Dividend Kings have historically held up better during market downturns, riding out bear markets better than other stocks and also have recovered faster. It's important to care for you adequate share of Dividend Kings in your portfolio, especially in volatile times.

My favorite picks are Procter, Genuine Parts, 3M, Dover, Nordson and Lowe's. Those stocks should grow earnings while the forward P/E is not too far away from normal. Do you agree with me?

Here are the Dividend Kings....