Now that we’re a few days into October, I thought I’d take a look at how well the Dividend Aristocrats did in the 3rd quarter of 2014. I’ll use the S&P 500 ETF ‘SPY’ as a proxy for comparison.
From June 1st to September 30th SPY was flat, being up just 0.46% during those 3 months. The 54 Dividend Aristocrats were split evenly in comparison, with 27 of the Aristocrats beating the S&P 500 index and 27 of them trailing the performance of the S&P 500. Not surprisingly, the two best performers were the two companies that announced their acquisition by other companies: Sigma-Aldrich (SIAL), which will be bought out by Merck KGaA of Germany and which was up 33.34%, and Family Dollar (FDO), which is the subject of a battle between Dollar Tree and Dollar General and which was up 19.40%. Other Aristocrats in the top 5 of performers in the 3rd quarter are agricultural processor Archer Daniels Midland (ADM, up 13.94%), steel company Nucor (NUE, up 11.18%), and uniform and diversified business supplier Cintas (CTAS, up 10.25%).
The worst 5 performers in the 3rd quarter were investment manager T. Rowe Price (TROW, down 7.32%), energy company Chevron (CVX, down 8.60%), diversified manufacturers Pentair (PNR, down 9.67%) and Dover (DOV, down 11.32%), and health care retailer Walgreens (WAG, down 19.67%). You might want to look at some of these companies if you had some extra cash to invest. In particular, Walgreens, which has doubled its dividend since 2009, looks particularly attractive to me.
There isn’t a consistent story in either of the best or worst performers, except possibly the performance of the Aristocrats that are about to be acquired. But it’s always interesting to see how well or poorly these dividend growth companies are doing and to use that information to look for investment opportunities.
Here’s the list of Dividend Aristocrats, ranked by 3rd quarter performance (you can sort the data by each of the columns):
| Ticker | 3rd Quarter Performance | Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|
| SIAL | 33.34% | 0.68% |
| FDO | 19.40% | 1.61% |
| ADM | 13.94% | 1.88% |
| NUE | 11.18% | 2.73% |
| CTAS | 10.25% | 1.09% |
| LOW | 9.95% | 1.74% |
| CAH | 8.11% | 1.83% |
| TGT | 7.38% | 3.32% |
| SHW | 5.89% | 1.00% |
| PG | 5.63% | 3.07% |
| CLX | 5.24% | 3.08% |
| PEP | 5.19% | 2.81% |
| VFC | 4.61% | 1.59% |
| HRL | 4.47% | 1.56% |
| ADP | 3.97% | 2.31% |
| ECL | 3.21% | 0.96% |
| LEG | 2.74% | 3.44% |
| ABBV | 2.30% | 2.91% |
| WMT | 2.25% | 2.51% |
| SYY | 2.15% | 3.06% |
| KO | 1.62% | 2.86% |
| ABT | 1.54% | 2.12% |
| SWK | 1.52% | 2.34% |
| JNJ | 1.36% | 2.63% |
| APD | 1.29% | 2.37% |
| MHFI | 1.16% | 1.42% |
| T | 0.60% | 5.22% |
| SPY (S&P 500 index proxy) | 0.46% | 1.79% |
| GPC | 0.42% | 2.62% |
| GWW | -0.05% | 1.72% |
| ED | -0.75% | 4.45% |
| CB | -1.26% | 2.20% |
| MMM | -1.41% | 2.41% |
| CINF | -1.86% | 3.74% |
| BCR | -2.13% | 0.62% |
| KMB | -2.78% | 3.12% |
| ITW | -2.82% | 1.99% |
| MDT | -3.07% | 1.97% |
| HCP | -4.22% | 5.49% |
| BDX | -4.54% | 1.92% |
| BF-B | -4.60% | 1.55% |
| BEN | -4.74% | 0.88% |
| CL | -4.76% | 2.21% |
| MCD | -5.32% | 3.42% |
| PPG | -5.80% | 1.36% |
| EMR | -5.97% | 2.75% |
| MKC | -6.14% | 2.21% |
| BMS | -6.95% | 2.84% |
| AFL | -7.04% | 2.54% |
| XOM | -7.21% | 2.93% |
| TROW | -7.32% | 2.24% |
| CVX | -8.60% | 3.59% |
| PNR | -9.67% | 1.83% |
| DOV | -11.32% | 1.87% |
| WAG | -19.67% | 2.13% |