Wall Street is notoriously vulnerable to wild short-term fluctuations, making it extremely difficult to know what to expect from one day to the next. That's why some investors favor a long-term view for their portfolios. They buy and hold companies they expect to continue to perform down the line, counting on time to smooth out the day-to-day volatility.
Long-term investors might therefore be interested in the annual Dividend Champions, a list maintained by The DRiP Investing Resource Center. This roster identifies the companies that have managed to pay and raise their dividends every year for 25 consecutive years.
Which may not seem all that significant at first. But when you consider the booms and busts, wars, and deep recessions we've seen these past two and a half decades, it's actually rather impressive that these companies have prevailed. And if past performance is any indication, these companies offer a good starting point for your own analysis.
That said, a history of consistency is no guarantee of future profits. Just look at all the banks that were "too big to fail" in 2008 -- some of them raised dividends mere months before they collapsed. When it comes to investing, there's no substitute for your own due diligence -- so be sure to do your homework before adding any holding to your portfolio.
For our own list, we narrowed down the universe of dividend champions by only focusing on the stocks that have been snapped up by insiders over recent weeks. Our rationale: Corporate execs know more about their company's financial health than we do. (Click here to access free, interactive tools to analyze these ideas.)
Here is a list of dividend champions being purchased by insider executives. Insider data sourced from AOL Money. The list has been sorted alphabetically.
|
Company |
Dividend Yield |
Insider Transactions |
|---|---|---|
| Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) |
2.82% | Barry Diller (Director) bought $7.38M worth of stock on 11/1 |
| Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) |
4.25% | Lizanne Gottung (Officer) bought $226,826 worth of stock on 10/28 |
| Leggett & Platt (NYSE: LEG) |
5.33% | David Haffner (CEO) bought $120,190 worth of stock between 10/25-11/2 |
| Nacco Industries (NYSE: NFG) |
2.28% | Don Cash (Director) bought $105,827 worth of stock on 10/7 |
| National Fuel Gas (NYSE: NC) |
2.07% | Alfred Rankin (CEO) bought $14,672 worth of stock on 9/15 |
Interactive Chart: Press Play to see how analyst opinion has changed on all the stocks mentioned above.
Kapitall's Eben Esterhuizen and Alicia Sellitti do not own shares of any companies mentioned.
