The daddy of worth investing, Benjamin Graham recommended selecting shares with “uninterrupted [dividend] funds for no less than the previous 20 years.” Shares within the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrat Index observe the identical thought, however go one step additional. This can be a group of shares within the S&P 500 Index which have paid and elevated dividends for 25 consecutive years. The index at present has 65 constituents. You may spend money on the total listing of Dividend Aristocrats by the ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrat ETF (NOBL). The highest sectors are Industrials, Client Staples, Supplies and Well being Care.

The downloadable Dividend Aristocrats Excel Spreadsheet incorporates the sector, present inventory value, market capitalization, enterprise worth, EV/EBIT, P/E, P/FCF, Dividend yield, Dividend payout ratio for every inventory within the index. The spreadsheet is up to date weekly. 

Earnings earlier than curiosity and taxes (EBIT), Earnings and Free Money Stream (FCF) are three-year averages. The thought behind utilizing common earnings comes from Graham and Dodd’s basic textual content Safety Evaluation, the place they argued for smoothing a agency’s earnings. Graham and Dodd famous that one-year earnings had been too unstable to judge a agency’s true earnings energy.