Previous Year Performance Review
In our ongoing review of the NLO Dividend Watch List, we have taken the top five stocks on our list from July 6, 2018 and have checked the performance one year later. The top five companies on that list can be seen in the table below.
| Symbol |
Name |
2018 Price |
2019 Price |
% change |
| LM |
Legg Mason |
34.32 |
37.96 |
10.6% |
| SWK |
Stanley Black & Decker |
133.14 |
146.52 |
10.0% |
| IVZ |
Invesco Ltd. |
26.44 |
20.97 |
-20.7% |
| CMI |
Cummins Inc. |
131.40 |
169.15 |
28.7% |
| FULT |
Fulton Financial Corp. |
16.65 |
16.57 |
-0.5% |
| |
|
|
Average |
5.6% |
| |
|
|
|
|
| DJI |
Dow Jones Industrial |
24,456.48 |
26,922.12 |
10.1% |
| SPX |
S&P 500 |
2,759.82 |
2,990.41 |
8.4% |
The top five companies slightly underperformed the market. The best performer was Cummins (CMI) which is a major industrial company operating in the natural gas market. Cummins raised their dividend payment by 5%, from $1.08 to $1.14. The share price increase of +29% could be attributed to a strong gain in the net income. At the time of our writing last year, EPS were at $5.56 with projected EPS for 2018 to be at $14.07, current EPS (TTM) is at $15.41.
Our team said Legg Mason (LM) was setting up to be a good long-term accumulation and shares rose +10.60% in one year. However, share fell -32% hitting $23.51 before rebounding to $37.96. That's a 62% swing in share price to the upside. This type of action helps reaffirm our strategy of multi-stage purchases which could involve buying 1/3 or 1/2 of the position with the anticipation for further declines.

Another company we highlighted was 3M (MMM) which lost -13% of its value in one year. Shares were trading at a 2.50% dividend yield one year ago and the yield is currently at 3.30%. 3M raised their dividend 5.80%, from $1.36 to $1.44. Our 10-year target suggests that 3M is undervalued and should be considered for long-term accumulation.
U.S Dividend Watch List: July 5, 2019
The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average pushed through their all-time highs this week. This upward movement isn't confirmed by the Transportion index which is about 10% off the peak. Naturally a rise in the market leads to lower number of companies trading near their yearly low. Below is our watch list. Continue reading →