In every portfolio there will be stocks that have done well and stocks that have not, as the economy is never even. If you own oil stocks which for years was a very good thing to own, your portfolio was down. However there are some stocks which have been consistent over the past year in making profits and paying dividends.

Michael Pe of product manager for CPMS at Morningstar Research examined the S&P 500 index to find the consistent profitable companies.

His criteria was:

a consistent dividend growth – annual dividend growth every year for the past 5 years

a low dividend-to-earnings payout ratio – dividend payout ratio of less than 70%

a high Morningstar quantitative health score (the company he works for) – at least 70 out of 100

dividend yield of at least 1%

Company Mkt Cap Div Grth Payout Quant Health Div 1 Yr Ttl Recent

$ Bil Rate % Ratio% Score % Yld Rtn % Price

Citigroup 122.960 53.2 34.0 76 3.5 -21.9 59.06

Citizens Fin 14.610 42.8 54.2 71 4.6 -11.3 34.21

Charles Schwab 93.552 34.1 30.3 82 1.4 9.3 51.98

Regions Financial 14.656 28.3 42.6 73 4.1 -8.2 15.26

KeyCorp 15.057 24.6 55.0 72 4.8 -20.1 15.42

A.O. Smith 7.535 21.5 44.0 77 1.9 19.6 55.64

Hormel Foods 25.883 11.8 56.0 80 2.0 9.3 47.94

Jack Henry & Assoc 12.335 11.7 45.4 74 1.1 11.8 161.63

Accenture PLC 176.027 10.1 42.8 73 1.3 29.4 266.25

Microsoft 1662.648 9.5 33.0 72 1.0 41.7 218.59

The other companies in the list were: Cicso Systems, Clorox, Church & Dwight, Merck, Tiffany, Expeditors International of Washington, Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, C.H. Robinson and Proctor & Gamble

Linking to dividend paying stocks, if you bought the above companies for the dividend, you would still own them. Not all of them went up, the financials tended to have a down year but in 2021 they are expected to be positive as they stayed profitable but concerns were they would have greater write off of loans. In 2021 we all have hope that sectors such as tourism and hospitality can open up which is a good thing. You might own some names such as the ones above and you can ask your investment advisor for research such as the Morningside Research. Buying profitable stocks that can pay dividends is a good strategy.

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