A week or so ago, Paul Hoyda of Thomson Reuters examined opportunities to invest in defensive stocks which have a track record of maintaining dividends. The emphasis is on defensive stocks and Mr. Hoyda’s critera are:

market capitalization of greater than $20 billion

dividend yield of greater than 5% and a record of increasing the size of the dividend

Company                                  Market Cap           Dividend       5 year Avg         12M  Total Return

(US $ Bil)               Yield               Div Yield              (incl Div)

Energy Transfer Equity          20.170                       6.1%                   5.2%                         180.0%

Plains All American Pipe       21.252                        8.4                      6.7                              45.6

Enterprise Products Ptn         58.352                       5.8                      5.3                                21.6

Las Vegas Sands Corp              43.804                      5.2                       3.7                               11.4

Welltower      Inc                        23.928                     5.2                        4.9                                  4.2

Linking to dividend paying stocks, under Mr. Hoyda’s criteria only 5 companies made the list. The idea of research is to define the criteria which makes sense for you and then narrow the field, and hopefully all will good. In this case, given the history of paying dividends, the total return may change, but the dividends should continue for some time to come.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.