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I stumbled upon something disturbing while assembling this week’s Empire from which the Top Ten is built. When selecting at least five tickers from each sector¹, I noticed a new ticker in the five stocks that comprise the Consumer Discretionary component of the Empire. Since the Empire was first established, the Consumer Discretionary offerings have been as follows:

Ticker	Years
GPC	66
LOW	60
LEG	51
VFC	50
MCD	47

VF Corportation [VFC] suddenly disappeared and Sonoco Products Co [SON] founds its way onto the list.

Ticker	Years
GPC	66
LOW	60
LEG	51
MCD	47
SON	40

The Sure Dividend Research Database now has zero years associated with VFC. I was really just hoping that the database had been populated with a faulty link. Nope. VFC, a newly crowned Dividend King, has reduced its dividend. And folks, do you know what this means?

VF Corporation has abdicated the throne!

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Abdication [VFC]Read More »

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!

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Coronation! [SPGI]Read More »

Royal Dividends launched on July 13, 2022, and its first acquisition was made on July 18, 2022. After the 11th stock was added to the portfolio, I published a post titled ‘Going Forward’ and laid out a plan for continued investment in the ‘Portfolio for the Ages’. Here I present an updated version of the investment plan going forward. There are no big changes only small refinements.

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Going Forward [2]Read More »

Ordinarily, I update the Performance page once a week, the evening after the latest investment. Last night was the first time I could recall seeing a positive return since September 26, 2022, when the portfolio reached its initial maturity level of 11 positions, one stock from each sector. This is obviously good news. However, investors do like a yard stick, a way of measuring whether or not this is good performance or not. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to compare the performance of this portfolio to that of an index for multiple reasons which will be explained.

Yet, the thirst for comparison remains and so I search for a suitable benchmark.

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Performance UpdateRead More »