Achieving long-term success as a dividend growth investor implies a long-term buy-and-hold strategy. The reasons why are simple and straightforward. The primary objective of a committed dividend growth investor is to achieve a growing dividend income stream. This primary objective further implies achieving an increasing level of income that can fight inflation while simultaneously being capable of raising their standard of living over time.
However, you cannot just buy and hold any stock; you must buy and hold a company that is capable of achieving the long-term results commensurate with meeting your objectives. As I have stated many times, it is a market of stocks and not a stock market. Consequently, not every dividend paying stock is a keeper, and successful dividend growth investing implies investing in keepers. Stated more simply, this further implies investing in great businesses – not stocks. The most successful dividend growth investors position themselves as shareholder partners in excellent dividend paying businesses.
The ideal excellent dividend paying business is represented as a company that has consistently produced growing earnings and dividends over time, and the longer – the better. This clearly explains the attraction to premier blue-chip dividend paying stocks found in the Dividend Aristocrats or the Dividend Champions and Dividend Contenders found in David Fish’s CCC lists. To make these lists, these companies must have proven records of increasing their dividends for at least 10 consecutive years (Dividend Contenders), with the premier companies (Dividend Aristocrats and Champions) increasing their dividends for 25 consecutive years or longer.
This is important because it can be all too easy to become attracted to a dividend paying stock simply based on current statistics. Later I will present an example of a dividend paying stock with a very high current dividend yield and an extremely low current P/E ratio. Statistics like those can easily lure the unsuspecting dividend growth investor into investing in a stock that might not be capable of achieving the goals I’ve described above.
General Dynamics (GD): A Quintessential Example of a Keeper
In addition to the attributes of consistent earnings and dividend growth, I believe it is also critical to only invest in a keeper when it is attractively or fairly valued. To demonstrate my point, I offer the following long-term F.A.S.T. Graphs™Â on General Dynamics. The orange and blue lines on the graph (both are there) illustrates that earnings growth has been very consistent notwithstanding a few down years. The light green line (it appears white) plots General Dynamics’ dividend since 1997. Although there have been a couple of down years of earnings, General Dynamics’ dividend record has been exemplary. And the reader should note this time period covers both of our most recent recessions (gray shaded areas).
I also chose this example in order to discuss what in some circles generates a controversial discussion. Dividend growth investors are often maligned for stating that they are not concerned with price movement. Clearly, over the timeframe covered on the long-term graph, the stock price (the black line) action of General Dynamics has been challenging. This is especially true during the Great Recession and the three or four years following. However, the primary objective of the dividend increasing each year was perfectly achieved. Therefore, the dividend growth investor who states they are not worrying about price action is simply pointing out that the growing dividend income stream is what matters most. On the other hand, as I will illustrate next, long-term performance through investing in a blue-chip dividend growth stock usually produces above-average capital appreciation as well – in the long run.
