The Top Dividend Aristocrats in Materials

Dividend-paying companies are an oasis in the desert of underperforming stocks. They offer solid payouts today and the promise of capital gains tomorrow. According to a study by Ibbotson, reinvested dividends made up about 40% of total stock returns from 1926 to 2006. In fact, dividend investing is so appealing that superinvestor Warren Buffett has made it a significant component of his portfolio.

When searching for great dividend stocks, it makes a lot of sense to start with companies that have been playing the dividend game the longest. Standard & Poor's has culled the dividend winners from the also-rans in a list it calls the "dividend aristocrats."

Let's examine the top dividend aristocrats by yield in the materials industry. For context, I've also included their five-year annualized dividend growth rate.

Company	Yield	Five-year dividend growth
Bemis (NYSE: BMS  )	3.0%	5.0%
Air Products & Chemicals (NYSE: APD  )	2.6%	8.9%
PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG  )	2.4%	3.2%
Sherwin Williams (NYSE: SHW  )	1.7%	11.9%
Ecolab (NYSE: ECL  )	1.4%	12.0%
Sigma-Aldrich (Nasdaq: SIAL  )	1.1%	11.0%

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

These aren't formal recommendations -- just ideas for your own further research. Still, they could give you a great start toward finding companies capable of paying rising dividends for a quarter-century or more. You can see the fastest-growing 2011 aristocrats here.

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