Target was founded in 1902 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but the first discount Target store didn't open until 1962. Today, Target is one of America's largest retailers with annual sales of approximately $70 billion and more than 1,800 stores across the country. Target’s stores focus on convenient one-stop shopping and competitive discount prices, offering a [...]
Founded in 1890, Emerson Electric is a global industrial conglomerate that serves the oil and gas, refining, chemicals, power generation, pharma, food and beverages, pulp and paper, metal and mining, and municipal water supply sectors. Emerson Electric brings together technology and engineering to provide solutions for customers in the process, industrial, commercial, and residential [...]
Despite operating in one of the most controversial and heavily regulated industries in America, tobacco stocks have historically been excellent long-term, high-yield dividend growth investments. In fact, Altria (MO) has been the best performing stock of the last 50 years, generating 20.6% annual returns and increasing shareholder wealth a remarkable 6,638 fold. Along [...]
Restaurants can be a potentially great but also very challenging industry for dividend growth investors to do well in. After all, a steady expansion of store counts can lead to highly predictable growth. But on the other hand, a ruthlessly competitive environment, shifting consumer tastes, and numerous cost uncertainties can make it challenging [...]
Brick-and-mortar retail has been struggling in recent years as consumers increasingly turn to online shopping. In fact, e-commerce sales have grown seven times faster than brick and mortar retail since 2005 (14% annually vs 2%). That being said, brick-and-mortar shopping is far from dead, with most physical stores still seeing slow but steady growth [...]
There's a school of thought popularized by Peter Lynch that investors should "invest in what you know." In other words, buy companies that make products that you use and understand well. This is one reason why food and beverage companies are popular, especially those that produce household brands that consumers buy on a frequent basis. [...]
When it comes to high-quality dividend growth stocks, investors naturally gravitate to blue chips like dividend aristocrats and dividend kings. After all, no company can increase its dividend for at least 25 or 50 years in a row without a certain combination of highly admirable characteristics. These traits tend to include stable and predictable [...]
While fast-growing momentum stocks might get the headlines, some of the best long-term investments are often far less exciting dividend growth stalwarts such as 3M (MMM). This industrial powerhouse has made countless investors amazingly wealthy over the years (12.9% total returns vs 9.1% for the S&P 500 over the last 22 years) thanks to its disciplined [...]
While interest rates are slowly rising, they remain at historically low levels. As a result, many income-focused investors continue to search for the best high dividend stocks to meet their long-term investing needs. High dividend stocks can be an appealing way to fund a portion of retirement through dividends rather than the selling of shares, but [...]
Wide moat industrial stocks, such as defense contractor Lockheed Martin (LMT), often make excellent long-term dividend growth stocks. In fact, Lockheed Martin is a dividend achiever with 15 straight years of consecutive dividend increases under its belt. Even better, the stock has managed to grow its payout at an impressive average annual rate of 10% over [...]
When it comes to safe and consistent dividend growth, few companies have done it better than the dividend aristocrats, S&P 500 companies with 25+ consecutive years of payout increases under their belt. Of these impressive dividend growers, AT&T (T) stands tall above all the rest with a 5.9% dividend yield. When combined with the [...]
Omega Healthcare (OHI) announced third quarter results last night that took many investors by surprise, sending the stock down as much as 10% in early trading this morning. For those who are unfamiliar with the company, Omega Healthcare is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that provides financing and capital primarily to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). [...]
Blue chip drug makers such as Merck (MRK) have historically been very popular with income investors because of their defensive nature, meaning that drug demand isn't really affected by economic downturns. However, what many investors fail to realize is that, while the pharmaceutical industry as a whole may be recession resistant, successful long-term dividend [...]
One of Warren Buffett's best pieces of investment advice is that "it's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price." This is why each quarter, when Berkshire Hathaway reveals its portfolio via regulatory filings, investors eagerly look to see what companies have the Oracle [...]
Even blue chip dividend stocks can fall on hard times, especially when they operate in highly cyclical industries that depend on volatile commodity prices. Such was the case with Caterpillar (CAT), which despite an impressive track record of growing its dividend at an average rate of 11% over the past 20 years, was forced [...]