Decades of rising payments cut your risk

Article Excerpt

A key part of successful dividend investing is picking stocks, such Procter & Gamble and Walmart, with long histories of rising, sustainable payments. PROCTER & GAMBLE CO. $159 is a buy. The company (New York symbol PG; Income-Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 2.4 billion; Market cap: $381.6 billion; Dividend yield: 2.3%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Highest; www.pg.com) is one of the world’s largest makers of household and personal-care goods. Major brands include Tide (laundry detergent), Pampers (diapers), Gillette (razors) and Crest (toothpaste). Procter is now raising your quarterly dividend by 5.0%. Starting with the May 2022 payment, investors will receive $0.9133 a share instead of $0.8698. The new annual rate of $3.65 yields 2.3%. Procter has paid shareholder dividends for 132 years and has increased its payout annually for the past 66 years. In its fiscal 2022 third quarter, ended March 31, 2022, Procter’s sales improved 7.0%, to $19.38 billion from $18.11 billion a year earlier. Price increases to cover rising input costs lifted sales 5%. As…