Over the past few years, I have accumulated a ton of tiny little positions. This may annoy some investors, but it actually doesn’t really bother me. They have been accumulated from my dividend screening process which changes year over year. While I made a conscious decision to just focus on building my ETF positions I thought it about time to go and make sure no one has cut their dividend. While it is my plan to go back to screening for undervalued dividend growth stocks in 2024 we’ll see what happens.

The last time I did this exercise was in September of 2022.

My Current Holdings

I am currently holding 35 different positions that I currently believe have increased their dividends for the past 15+ years (used to be 25, then 20 and now 15).

  1. ADM
  2. AFL
  3. AROW
  4. ATO
  5. BEN
  6. CAH
  7. CARR
  8. CB
  9. CHRW
  10. CINF
  11. CLX
  12. CSL
  13. CTBI
  14. DOV
  15. EBTC
  16. EMR
  17. GD
  18. KR
  19. MCY
  20. MGRC
  21. MS
  22. NC
  23. NWFL
  24. ORI
  25. OTIS
  26. PH
  27. PPL
  28. RBCAA
  29. RTX
  30. SJM
  31. SON
  32. THFF
  33. WBA
  34. WLK
  35. XOM

Those marked in red above are the ones I have to look into to see why they aren’t on the Dividend Champion or Dividend Contender list. I also have the following other Positions

  • IMPUY – ETF of Platinum
  • My Dividend ETFs Alluded to Earlier (VIG, VIGI, SMDV and SCHD)
  • IAC – Purchased to be in with a buddy
  • MMM – While technically it is part of the group cross-referenced above I only have the position because I was assigned shares through my unsecured put selling.
  • INTC – Not on the list but assigned because of unsecured put selling.

Diving into the Highlighted Companies

As I mentioned I did this process before so I was able to save some of those on the chopping block relatively quickly:

  • OTIS – Spin off from UTX and RTX merger. Since spinning off they have raised their dividend, and while that is only two years I like the idea of the company being in the very boring but necessary elevator industry.
  • CARR – Again a spin-off from UTX and RTX merger. Again, they have increased their dividend since spinning off, and are in a very boring but needed business (HVAC).
  • MS – Received when Eaton Vance was acquired by Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley has 8 years of dividend increases, so once again, I decided to keep the position.
  • MCY – They cut their dividend last August by about half. In doing so MCY destroyed a 35-year run of dividend growth. Despite the position being underwater with a negative P/E and no longer on the list it has to be cut today. Half the proceeds will be kept in cash and the other half put into my dividend growth ETFs.
  • PPL – Again they cut their dividend in about half and as such will be sold here. Again, half will be kept in cash and the other half will be put into the dividend growth ETFs.

I would have liked to put all the proceeds back into the ETFs, however, I am carrying a good amount of margin debt from the assigned positions in MMM and INTC, and as such, seems only right to use about half.

Dividends

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