Why Invest in Dividend Growth?
Investing in dividend growth companies helps investors identify and invest in quality corporations that are usually associated with strong fundamentals, stable earnings, and a solid history of profitability and growth. Generally, these companies have outperformed other corporations that have not grown their dividend, or do not offer a dividend to investors. Typically, investments in dividend growing companies have also provided strong returns, with lower volatility in comparison to other investment strategies. Finally, the dividend received from investing in dividend growing companies can provide income as well as capital appreciation from the investment.
The Dividend Fund aligns with our historical principles, while also offering our clients with a carefully managed, dividend growth driven strategy. Constructing investment portfolios that are diversified and seek to preserve principal and liquidity are key concepts that extend across the solutions offered here at MVT.
The graph on the left demonstrates that dividend growth stocks have outperformed stocks with stable, decreasing, or non-existent dividends.
Dividend Reinvestment
Dividend reinvestment is one of the main drivers of capital appreciation in this strategy. The ability to buy more shares with the dividend income provided by the fund helps our clients effectively dollar-cost average in their portfolio. In the long run, this can be a great strategy to reduce your average cost per share and grow your portfolio.
The graph on the right demonstrates the importance of dividends on the return of the S&P 500 index. Without the inclusion of the dividends and dividend reinvestments in the return, the performance is more than 6 times worse.
Our Investment Process
We begin our analysis by screening companies based on quantitative factors using metrics that we believe are imperative for dividend growing companies. We start with an investment universe across all domestic stocks listed on major U.S. stock exchanges. Typically, this results in a list of 10,194 stocks. Following our screen, we are typically left with around 40 stocks that have quantitative factors that we believe align with the investment thesis here at MVT.
After our quantitative screens are run, we conduct more in depth research regarding payout ratios, company bond ratings, company vs. industry comparisons, recent earnings trends and surprises, the sustainability of the companies dividend and the likelihood of dividend changes, and much more. We also consider the company's ESG Factors, management analysis and changes, as well as conducting an analysis of the company's historic dividend growth. As a result, these qualitative factors can lead us to selecting or disqualifying stocks in our security selection process.