If you’re looking for safety, with yield to boot, look at the Dividend Aristocrats and the Kings.
With the Aristocrats, you’ll find the cream of the crop of stocks, which have raised dividends for more than 25 years. With the Kings, these are the heavyweights, which have been paying dividends for 50, or more years. What makes them even more special is the fact that even
in times of economic disarray, inflation, booms, busts, rising interest rates, recessions, and crashes, they’ve still raised their dividends.
If a company can survive all of that – and pay dividends – it’s worth a look.
While you can always buy individual Dividend Kings, you can also diversify and collect yields from related ETFs, too.
Look at the Pro Shares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (NOBL), which carries a yield of 2.71% and holds 67 different stocks, for example.
With an expense ratio of 0.35%, the ETF focuses on the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats—high-quality companies that have not just paid dividends but grown them for at least 25 consecutive years, with most doing so for 40 years or more. In fact, some of its top holdings include Caterpillar, Pentair, AbbVie, AFLAC, General Dynamics, Clorox Co., Walmart, Hormel Foods, and dozens more. All of which have a strong dividend-paying history.
