Bert’s 2016 Goals

I can’t write this without smiling.  2016 is going to be an amazing, life-changing year for me and I cannot wait until the ball drops on New Year’s Eve to make it official.  I’ll be marrying the love of my life at the end of May, so I don’t think there is a bad thing that can happen to me.   Well, now I left myself with an impossible task.  How on earth to I segue from that to discussing my 2015 investing goals?  Nothing I do this year will mean more to mean than that.  So I guess I will technically knock out one goal at the end of May?  Anyway…. now I’ll get down to business.  This article will discuss my 2016 goals!goals

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Top 5 Dividend Aristocrats with Low Debt to Equity Ratios

Recently, we saw the ugly side of debt.  As we all watched Kinder Morgan’s stock fall and wait for the final, inevitable sword of a dividend increase, there was one thing that became evident…KMI’s debt level was too high and the results were unsustainable in the current market environment (See Lanny’s awesome write up/analysis about KMI from earlier in the week).  The pressures mounted and management plus the Board of Directors decided to slash their dividend to preserve cash flow for capital expenditures and cover interest/dividend payments.   While debt isn’t a bad thing, I don’t want you leaving this intro thinking that’s my conclusion, runaway/uncontrolled debt can present many problems.  The name of our game on this website is investing in stocks with a growing dividend income stream, so we try to avoid companies and stocks that take us off of this course.  Which is very ironic considering that Lanny and I purchased shares in KMI just under a month ago (here and here) With the wound from KMI still fresh, I wanted to run a stock screener and identify several Dividend Aristocrats with low debt levels.  Check out our newest installment of our Top 5 list series (foundation stocks and low dividend yield/high dividend growth rate stocks)….the Top 5 Dividend Aristocrats with Low Debt to Equity Levels.

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Expected Dividend Increases in July 2015

Holy cow everyone, time has flown by!  I can’t believe we are flying through July already.   Before it is too late and we are already looking ahead to August, I wanted to continue our monthly series of Dividend Aristocrats that are expected to announce each month.  Let’s take a look at which Aristocrats are expected that are set to increase their dividend in July 2015!

Watch List

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Expected Dividend Increases in June 2015

I alluded to this fact in my article last month, but I have now officially completed a 12 month cycle in my expected dividends increases article!  This has been one of our more consistent articles in our one year of blogging and I have enjoyed summarizing Dividend Aristocrats that are expected to announce dividend increases in the upcoming month.  Why?  Because it has introduced me to many new dividend paying stocks that I never considered before because either the yield is too low or they do not receive the same coverage as your Walmarts, PGs, JNJs, etc.   So now that we completed one 12-month cycle, let’s begin a new chapter and review Dividend Aristocrats that are expected to announce a dividend increase in June 2015!

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Expected Dividend Increases in May

All, I am very proud to say this, but this article series has come around full circle.  One of the very first articles we wrote on this blog was about Dividend Aristocrats that were expected to announce a dividend increase during June, 2014. This article will represent our 12th summary and you know what that means, our website is getting ready to celebrate its one year anniversary!  As a refresher, this monthly article series stemmed out of a love that me, Lanny, and many other dividend growth investors share….increasing dividends!   So much so that it turned into a game as we would try our best to predict the increase that would be announced.  While the game was fun, it was centered around the central idea that dividend growth is crucial for any DGI portfolio so that we can build a steady, growing income stream.  Without the growth, our income stream would begin to lose its purchasing power annually as the growth in inflation would slowly erode the value of the income stream.  With that being said, lets take a look at the first article in Year 2 and see which dividend Aristocrats are expected to announce a dividend  increase in May.

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Top 5 Low Dividend Yield, High Dividend Growth Stocks

I’m very excited to dive into this research and find what we think are the best 5 low yield, high dividend growth stocks.  We are only going to focus on the dividend aristocrats, who have increased dividends for 25+ years consecutively, as a baseline/filter out of stocks.  This will then keep us focused on a good barrel fool instead of a whole potential market full of stocks.  As the dividend world goes – typically if you invest into a lower yielding stock, it is compensated by a high dividend growth percentage, at least one would hope.  The case would be vice versa – a high dividend yield stock, would typically have a low dividend growth percentage.  Who is on our list for the top 5 spots?  Let’s find out!

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Expected Dividend Increases in April

One quarter is almost in the books.  Lanny and I had quite the active month and added some nice dividend income to our portfolios, as Lanny purchased CAT (twice) and HCP and swapped LO for PM last week while I added four new stocks to my portfolio and re-upped my position in one tobacco stock (I’m not spoiling the surprise completely).   As I said, a crazy month for us.  While we were active and many companies paid dividends in March, it was a relatively quiet for Dividend Aristocrats as only a few were set to announce increases last month.  Will that change in April?  Did  the companies follow through with their expected dividend increases last month?  Let’s find out!

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