Hello Dividend Readers,
I know I’m a bit late on this, but I figured it would still be beneficial to get this out there, and I tried to provide a nice format. You’ll notice a new column that I’ve added this year which is the “New/Removed” column. It is pretty self-explanatory, but anything that was added since 2010 is denoted in this column, and anything that was present in the 2010 list, but now removed is denoted as well.
To make it a quicker read, I’ve also made the new additions bold & green, and the removed ones are struck-through and red. This should help make scanning the list easy for those who are only interested in the changes to the 2011 Dividends Aristocrats List. If you are unsure of what this list means, please scroll down below the list and read the description I’ve made for it.
| Constituent Name | Constituent Symbol | New/Removed |
| 3M Co | MMM | |
| AFLAC Inc | AFL | |
| Abbott Laboratories | ABT | |
| Air Products & Chemicals Inc | APD | |
| Archer-Daniels-Midland Co | ADM | |
| Automatic Data Processing | ADP | |
| Bard, C.R. Inc | BCR | |
| Becton, Dickinson & Co | BDX | |
| Bemis Co Inc | BMS | |
| Brown-Forman Corp B | BF/B | |
| CenturyLink Inc | CTL | |
| Chubb Corp | CB | |
| Cincinnati Financial Corp | CINF | |
| Cintas Corp | CTAS | |
| Clorox Co | CLX | |
| Coca-Cola Co | KO | |
| Consolidated Edison Inc | ED | |
| Dover Corp | DOV | |
| Ecolab Inc | ECL | New |
| Emerson Electric Co | EMR | |
| Exxon Mobil Corp | XOM | |
| Family Dollar Stores Inc | FDO | |
| Grainger, W.W. Inc | GWW | |
| Hormel Foods Corp | HRL | New |
| Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | |
| Kimberly-Clark | KMB | |
| Leggett & Platt | LEG | |
| Lowe’s Cos Inc | LOW | |
| McCormick & Co | MKC | New |
| McDonald’s Corp | MCD | |
| McGraw-Hill Cos Inc | MHP | |
| PPG Industries Inc | PPG | |
| PepsiCo Inc | PEP | |
| Pitney Bowes Inc | PBI | |
| Procter & Gamble | PG | |
| Sherwin-Williams Co | SHW | |
| Sigma-Aldrich Corp | SIAL | |
| Stanley Black & Decker | SWK | |
| Target Corp | TGT | |
| VF Corp | VFC | |
| Wal-Mart Stores | WMT | |
| Walgreen Co | WAG |
What is a Dividend Aristocrat?
A Dividend Aristocrat is a blue chip stock who has increased its dividend annually for the past 25+ years consecutively. These aren’t stocks that have done something cool in the last year, this is a list of stocks that have made a commitment to consistently raise their dividends, and have for the past 25+ consecutive years.
If you had purchased these stocks 25 years ago, you probably would have been treated quite well over the course of that time! This is a great research starting point for anyone who is considering dividend investing. Don’t forget, there are a lot of Tax benefits to dividend investing right now.