You may have heard of the Dividend Aristocrats. They are members of the S&P 500 Index, meeting certain minimum size and liquidity requirements, and have raised their dividends for at least 25 consecutive years. You can find the official list is put out by S&P Global here.
Dividend Kings are stocks with 50 or more consecutive years of dividend increases. However, they are not just a subset of the Aristocrats as one might assume. While each King easily satisfies the consecutive dividend increase streak (twice over!), they aren’t required to be members of the S&P 500 Index. Now, because this collection of stocks isn’t an official index, there isn’t universal agreement on the exact number of stocks that qualify for this distinction.
The Complete List of Dividend Kings
Sure Dividend produces the most comprehensive and most accurate list1. They are an elite investment newsletter and research service dedicated to dividend paying companies. You can view the complete list, as well as some useful characteristics, here.
Take a gander at the list. Certainly, there are some names you recognize and quite likely, some names you don’t recognize. There is one Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and even a couple of companies trading over the counter (OTC). One sector is missing from the list (Communication Services). Yet, there are quite a few Industrials and Consumer Staples stocks. Though this list is likely to grow each year, its finiteness means we can become intimately familiar with them.
1A few different sources have declared what they believe to be a complete list, but the number ranges from 37 to 44 companies. A couple of sources agree on the number, but only coincidentally, as they disagree on a name or two. At least two sources have removed Leggett & Platt, Inc. [LEG] from their ‘official’ list citing LEG’s removal from the S&P 500. But why would these same sources include over a dozen other companies that have never been part of the S&P 500?