LONDON -- JP Morgan Claverhouse IT (LSE: JCH) has a record of 40 years of unbroken dividend growth. The trust lifted its dividend by 3.3% for 2012, and at a current share price of 525 pence, the yield is 3.6%.

Picking great dividend shares has helped JP Morgan Claverhouse outperform the FTSE All-Share Index over the past three, five, and 10 years.

Let's take a look at the trust's current top three holdings: HSBC (HSBA 0.25%) (HSBC 0.32%), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB), and BP (BP 0.49%).

HSBC
HSBC stands out from the crowd of five FTSE 100 banks -- and not just because of the recent eye-catching appointment of a former Director General of MI5 to the board of directors!

There's sheer size: HSBC's market capitalisation of £127 billion is almost three times that of nearest rival Lloyds. Then, there's global diversification: none of HSBC's peers can compete with the international reach and geographical diversity of its operations. Finally, and most pertinently for the subject of this article, HSBC offers the highest dividend yield within the banking sector.

At a recent share price of 683 pence, analyst dividend forecasts imply a yield of 4.9% for the current year, rising to 5.5% for 2014.

Royal Dutch Shell
Oil supermajor Shell is even bigger than HSBC, sporting a market cap of some £135 billion -- about £50 billion ahead of nearest oil rival BP.

Shell increased its dividend by 2.4% last year. A modest increase right enough, but the dividend had been stuck at the same level for the three preceding years. Furthermore, analysts see growth accelerating to 5% this year.

At a recent share price of 2,179 pence, the City experts' forecasts give a 5.3% yield for 2013, rising to an HSBC-matching 5.5% for 2014.

BP
JP Morgan Claverhouse has made Shell's fellow Footsie supermajor BP another of the trust's heavyweight holdings.

While Shell's shareholders suffered a stagnant dividend in the recent past, they did a lot better than their counterparts at BP. The latter had to suspend three quarterly dividends as a result of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico during 2010. However, the dividend has been growing strongly since, albeit from a post-blowout lower base.

At a recent share price of 456 pence, analyst forecasts give a yield of 5.2% for the current year, rising to that now-familiar 5.5% yield for 2014.

Happy retirement!
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