Shares of Ventas (VTR) tumbled nearly 10% on Friday in an uncharacteristic move for this healthcare REIT known for its stability. Ventas' third-quarter earnings report was the driver. Management cited "unprecedented" weakness in the senior housing market, which drives just over half of the firm's net operating income (NOI). The firm's senior housing operating properties (SHOP), where Ventas partners up to run its own properties rather than lease them out as a landlord, generated 33% of the firm's NOI in 2019. SHOP's same-store NOI fell 5% last quarter.

Last year, we launched an all-new version of Simply Safe Dividends that's 100% free to upgrade to (no price hike, additional fees, etc). The new website improves upon virtually every aspect of the original site and adds ground-breaking new features to our service.For example, the new website's portfolio-monitoring tool adds import and export capabilities, locked table headers, customizable columns, realtime price updates, brokerage account syncing, dividend alert notifications, and more.We've also been investing a lot in our Dividend Safety Score system, and subscribers of the new website will now receive a notification anytime a score changes in their portfolio. That way you're never in the dark about why a score was upgraded or downgraded.There's lots more that's new and improved, [...]

In June, we warned that EQM Midstream Partners' (EQM) Dividend Safety Score could be downgraded if the firm's critical Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project faced further delays. Unfortunately, on October 22, EQM announced that the MVP's estimated completion date has been pushed back once more from mid-2020 to "late 2020" and its projected cost also increased by $500 million to between $5.3 billion and $5.5 billion. This latest setback likely keeps EQM's leverage higher for longer, making it more difficult for EQM to maintain its investment-grade credit rating which management has said is a priority. A downgrade to junk status would raise EQM's cost of capital, potentially hurting its ability to profitably fund its future growth projects.

Founded in 1886 by a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia, Coca-Cola (KO) has grown to become the world’s largest drink purveyor and the sixth most valuable brand in the world. It markets over 4,300 products through more than 500 brands in over 200 countries.In fact, Coca-Cola is so geographically diversified that North America accounts for just 37% of overall sales volumes and 28% of operating income. The vast majority of the company’s sales and profits come from a strong core of $1+ billion brands that the company produces in about 900 plants around the world and markets through 24 million global retail outlets.