Value Investing News

Dividend growth investing is a long-term strategy. A growing dividend is a sign that the company is becoming more valuable. Companies that consistently increase dividends tend to have steadily rising share prices and the best way to benefit from this is to buy and hold the stocks. Diversification and a focus on blue-chip stocks provides insurance for the few companies that don't pan out.

Commitment is a word often thrown around, but rarely backed up with actions. Salesmen are committed to your needs until you sign on the dotted line - then they are committed to next unsigned contract. A true measure of character is how committed are you to doing right when the times are hard and you are tempted to go astray?

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Any income investor will tell you that it is important for a company to sustain its dividend. However, as an investor in dividend growth stocks, it is not enough to simply sustain the dividend – I want to own companies that are capable of sustained dividend growth.

Readers of this space know that the primary focus of my investing efforts is to build an ever-increasing income income stream by investing in dividend growth securities. This means that often I will choose a lower yielding security with better dividend growth prospects over a higher yielding security. As one that values diversity, I also invest in some high yield securities.

In the southern U.S. where I live, there has been some controversy over harvesting forests of hardwoods and reseeding them with pines. Growing hardwoods is very similar to investing in dividend stocks. What you plant or invest in today will not yield much for years to come. That is not to say progress is not seen. It is just slow and deliberate.

Few companies have managed to raise dividends for several consecutive years in a row. For example there are fewer than 300 companies listed on US exchanges which have raised distributions for more than one decade. Of particular interest to many dividend investors are companies which are able to raise earnings, which fuels future dividend growth.

Are you confident and secure in your investing process? It appears many people are not. We must follow a process we are 100% confident in. Doubt is the gateway to destructive behavior. For me, dividend growth investing is what I am confident and secure in.

The Consistent Cash Creators stock screen looks at companies with consistent free cash flows and high normalized earnings yield. Not one position selected by the screen in 2009 produced a negative return and the overall average return was 62%.