Updated May 30th, 2018
The Dividend Aristocrats are a select group of currently 53 S&P 500 stocks with 25+ years of consecutive dividend increases.These 53 are large, US companies that have historically provided (slightly) better performance and (slightly) lower volatility than the S&P 500 as a whole.
S&P 500 applies the following criteria to construct the Dividend Aristocrats list:
- must be members of the S&P 500
- must have increased dividends every year for at least 25 consecutive years
- Market Cap at least USD 3 billion
- Liquidity at least USD 5 million (average daily value traded)
- Diversification, at least 40 constituents and not sector allocation above 30%
On January 24th, 2018, the following stocks were added to the Dividend Aristocrats Index:
- Praxair (PX),
- Roper Technologies (ROP),
- A.O. Smith Corporation (AOS).
C.R. Bard (BCR) was removed from the Index after it was acquired by fellow Dividend Aristocrat Becton-Dickinson (BDX).
Source: S&P News Release
See also an overview of all changes since 2009
You can download an Excel spreadsheet of all 53 and analyze several important metrics by clicking the link below:
The Dividend Aristocrats Excel spreadsheet contains the following fundamental and stock price performance metric for each stock in the index .
Fundamental metrics:
- Dividend & earnings per share
- Dividend Yield
- Price-to-earnings ratio
- Pay-out ratio
- Expected total return
- (Modified) PEG ratio
- Dividend Growth rate
Stock price performance metric:
- 1 yr price target
- 10 year weighted compound annual growth rate (WCAGR / GEOPAK10)
- Win factor
- Loss ratio
- Total return
The S&P Dividend Aristocrats Index has outperformed the S&P 500 over the past decade. According to S&P, Dividend Aristocrats generated an annualized return of 11.95% over the past 10 years, easily beating the market’s 9.02% rate. Over this period, dividends accounted for 31% of the market’s total return.
For the year 2018 the performance (ytd) is -3.12%. See below the chart as of April 30,2018.
As explained the S&P Dividend Aristocrats Index currently contains 53 stocks with each equally-weighted. As you can see below, the consumer staples sector accounts for 24.6% of the index. This is not surprising given the stability of most consumer staples markets. Real Estate is on the other end of the spectrum at less than 1.72% of the S&P Dividend Aristocrats Index. (date: April 30 2018)
Energy
- ExxonMobil
- Chevron
Consumer Discretionary
- Genuine Parts Company
- Lowe’s
- Target
- Walgreens Boots Alliance
- McDonald’s
- Leggett & Platt
- Wal-Mart
- V.F. Corp
Consumer Staples
- Archer Daniels Midland
- Brown-Forman
- Hormel Foods
- Kimberly-Clark
- McCormick & Company
- Sysco
- Procter & Gamble
- Colgate-Palmolive
- Clorox
- Coca-Cola
- Pepsico
Industrials
- 3M Company
- A.O. Smith
- Emerson Electric
- Dover
- Illinois Tool Works
- W.W. Grainger
- Pentair
- Roper Technologies
- Stanley Black & Decker
- Cintas
- General Dynamics
Financials
- S&P Global Inc (formerly McGraw Hill Financial)
- Aflac
- Franklin Resources
- T. Rowe Price
- Cincinnati Financial
Real Estate
- Federal Realty Investment Trust
Healthcare
- Becton, Dickinson and Company
- Cardinal Health
- Medtronic
- AbbVie
- Abbott Laboratories
- Johnson & Johnson
Basic Materials
- Air Products
- PPG
- Sherwin-Williams
- Ecolab
- Nucor
- Praxair
Technology
- Automatic Data Processing (ADP)
- AT&T
Utilities
- Consolidated Edison
