In 1860, Henry Varnum Poor publishes “History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States“, which provided investors with data on the growing railroad industry. It ignited what today might be better known as the use of investment analytics. Poor began working for the government with the Pacific Union Railroad, and in 1868, Poor’s Publishing puts out “Manual of the Railroads of the United States”. This publication gave investors current information on railroad performance on which they could make decisions. You have the “Poor’s” part of where I’m going, and you have the railroad part. But here’s another, separate, tale out of yesteryear.
In 1906, Luther Lee Blake founds the Standard Statistics Bureau which provided investors with current information on non-railroad industrials on index cards. Now, you have the “Standard” part of the name and the non-railroad side of things too. The history is out there for all to see, but let’s just say at some point, these services and others came together under the name Standard and Poor’s to create the behemoth of investor analytics that provides every investor on the globe with valuable real-time information on which decisions are made. I mean for crying out loud, they are the S&P behind the S&P 500 Index. You can invest in them. Oh, and I almost forgot, on January 25, 2023, they announced a dividend increase that represents 50 consecutive years of annual increases in their dividend, making them a Dividend King.
All hail S&P Global Inc!
According to TD Ameritrade:
S&P Global Inc [SPGI] is a provider of credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity and automotive markets. The Company comprises six operating divisions: S&P Global Market Intelligence (Market Intelligence), S&P Global Ratings (Ratings), S&P Global Commodity Insights (Commodity Insights), S&P Global Mobility (Mobility), S&P Dow Jones Indices (Indices), and S&P Global Engineering Solutions (Engineering Solutions). Its Ratings provides credit ratings, research and analytics to investors and other market participants. Its Market Intelligence consists of three business lines: desktop, data management solutions and credit risk solutions. Its Indices is an index provider that maintains a range of indices to meet various investor needs. Its Mobility provides insights, forecasts and advisory services to the automotive value chain. Its Commodity Insights is an independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodity and energy markets.
Standard Statistics and Poor’s Publishing merged in 1941 and became known as Standard and Poor’s. But even before that merger they must have been paying dividends as they claim to have an unbroken streak of paying dividends since 1937.
SPGI is the fourth Dividend King in the Financials sector. However, only one of those four is undervalued at this time; that distinction falls to FMCB – the very first acquisition of the Royal Dividends portfolio. SPGI is trading at $368, about 25% off its all-time high, and still at a P/E Ratio north of 30. Further, despite the 50 years of increasing its dividend, the yield is less than 1%. So, though it is a great company, it won’t be making an appearance in the Top Ten any time soon, as the price would have to drop about another 40% just to raise the dividend yield above that of the S&P 500 Index which is currently 1.62%.
That’s hilarious; I’m using their own index against them.
Such is life. The market often puts a premium on great companies.