Thanksgiving is over, the first major snow has hit our hometown, and lookout, our Cleveland Browns have finally won back-to-back football games! Now that the calendar is set to turn and we enter the most exciting dividend month of the year, you know what that means? It is time for the next installment of one of our longest running blog post series. Each month, we do our best to highlight as many companies that are expected to announce a dividend increase that month. Since we love dividend increases and follow them so closely, we love trying to share the news with you! We can’t include them all, but we try to hit the major ones. It is time, for the last time in 2018. Here is our listing of expected dividend increases in December!
Actual Dividend Increases in November 2018
Before looking ahead, I always like to review the actual results from the prior month. After all, what fun would it be if we didn’t follow-up on the results? We predicted 7 companies would increase their dividend in November. A few of them could either not be announced since the companies announced a dividend increase earlier in the year ahead of schedule (SBUX) or announce either in the final week of November or early December. Let’s see the results!
- Company #1: Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) – At the time this article was finalized, SBUX had not announced their dividend increase. However, we will keep you updated and edit the article if there is announcement after the post is published!
- Company #2: Sysco Corporation (SYY) – SYY with the very solid 8.3% increase in their quarterly dividend! The $.03/share increase in their quarterly dividend matches the same cent amount as the prior year, so the percent increase decreased slightly as a result. But, this is larger than their 5-year average increase!
- Company #3: Hormel Foods Group (HRL) – Lanny was pretty excited about this 12% increase. In fact, he was so excited that he tweeted about the news immediately after he heard the news. It was a nice text to wake up to in the morning, that’s for sure. But this Dividend Aristocrat continues to deliver strong dividend increases on an annual basis. One of these days, I am going to buy in when the valuation is right!
Hormel $HRL just announced their 12% dividend increase! Thank you @HormelFoods
— Dividend Diplomats (@DvdndDiplomats) November 20, 2018
- Company #4: McCormick & Co (MKC) – Post Thanksgiving, MKC cooked up something nice for their investors. The company increased their quarterly dividend $.05/share, or 9.6%! This is right in line with their recent 5-year average dividend growth rate of 8.87%. Gotta love the consistency displayed here.
- Company #5: Walt Disney Co. (DIS) – In the previous month’s article, we noted that DIS has a history of increasing their dividend in either the final week of November or the first week of December. The million dollar question was…..which month were they going to announce the increase in during this year?? You all know how anxious Lanny and I get when we are sitting around, waiting for dividend increases that we are expecting to come. The mystery was solved when DIS announced a $.04/share increase in their semi-annual dividend at the end of November. This was a 4.7% increase, much lower than their increases from previous years.
- Company #6: Becton Dickinson & CO (BDX) – I mentioned last month that the company’s dividend yield is under 2% and their 5 year dividend growth rate is just under 8%. This recent dividend increase of $.02/share in their quarterly dividend, or 2.6%, was surprisingly low.
- Company #7: Nike (NKE) – Nike continued its march towards becoming an Aristocrat by announcing a 10% increased in their quarterly dividend or $.02/share. One thing to note as well is that the company announced a $15b share buyback program earlier in the year, to be completed over a 4 year stretch. NKE is looking to return some nice capital back to their shareholders!
Expected Dividend Increases in DEcember 2018
With the past behind us, now it is time for the fun part! Hopefully by now, we are all awake from our Post-Thanksgiving slumbers and are ready to look ahead and see which companies are expected to announce a dividend increase in the coming month. I know this isn’t an all-inclusive list. So please let me know in the comment section if I missed a company that you own or are monitoring. I would love to aggregate as large of a listing as possible for everyone to potentially use when making an investment decision. Here are the companies that are expected to announce dividend increases in December.
- Company #1: AT&T (T) – Let’s be honest. What dividend growth investor in this awesome online community isn’t excited about this anticipated AT&T dividend increase. Sure, the company’s annual $.01/share dividend increase doesn’t jump off the page. However, the company has a great dividend yield at the moment and any increase in their dividend provides a nice benefit to the company’s shareholders. I’ll tell you what. We own over 200 shares combined of the telecom giant, so I am really looking forward to this increase.
- Company #2: Pfizer (PFE) – PFE recently announced they are increasing the price of some of their key drugs. So will a strong dividend increase follow as well? All jokes aside, PFE has a very solid 7.2% 5-year average dividend growth rate and announced a 6.25% dividend increase in 2017. I’m expecting this year’s dividend increase to surpass the prior year and the company’s recent average! Fingers crossed.
- Company #3: Boeing (BA) – Boeing has absolutely CRUSHED it with their dividend increases in recent years. Last year, their dividend increase was over 20%! That wasn’t anything special though, as the company has delivered insane dividend increases for the better part of this decade. With tax reform and tariffs, this should be a really interesting year and I’ll be watching closely to see if the company continues with their strong dividend increases.
- Company #4: Abbott Laboratories (ABT) – ABBV has already announced a strong dividend increase for the year. Will the other half of the former consolidated organization follow along? How will tax reform impact ABT’s annual dividend? There are a lot of questions here, but I’m excited to see what happens!
- Company #5: ABM Industries (ABM) – ABM is a Dividend Aristocrat that not too many people know about. However, when you pay for parking at a parking garage, or an event, there is a good chance you are supporting this company! ABM is another low dividend yield, low dividend growth rate company. Never a great combination, so I will not be including them on my December dividend stock watch list. That could change, however, if management were to announce a strong dividend increase here!
Five excellent companies are expected to announce dividend increases in December. How many of them do you own? Are any of them on your watch list? Did you find any of the dividend increases announced in November shocking? I was a little shocked the DIS increase was less than 5%. Can’t wait to read your responses. Happy Investing everyone!
Bert