Dividend Growth Investing: The Complete Dividend Course

Learn how dividend per share determines your expected income, how to compute annual per-share payouts from quarterly dividends, and assess dividend growth while noting special dividends.

Learn how dividend yield is calculated as annual dividends divided by stock price and how it helps compare income from dividend stocks with bonds and cash; beware of chasing yields.

Chasing high dividend yields can mislead investors; payouts may be cut or eliminated, causing stock price declines. Learn to assess sustainability using payout ratios and cash flow.

Use the dividend payout ratio to gauge safety and the likelihood of maintaining or growing dividends. Compare this ratio with net income and industry peers to pick safer dividend stocks.

Discover how dividend growth rate signals long-term income by tracking annualized dividend growth and payout increases, using calculators to compare stocks like Yum Brands and Johnson Johnson.

Learn the four key dates for dividend stocks—declaration, ex-dividend, record, and payment—and how buying before the ex-dividend date secures the upcoming dividend while prices move around that date.

Dividend paying companies are typically profitable, large-cap firms with strong cash flow able to sustain payouts. Banks, health care, utilities, consumer goods, and some technology leaders regularly pay dividends.

Explain why companies pay dividends to reward owners, signal financial strength, and promote discipline, attracting investors and encouraging shareholders to stay with the stock.

Many profitable firms skip dividends to reinvest cash in growth, research, or expansion, or to fund stock buybacks rather than return cash to shareholders.

Discover that dividends are not guaranteed and can change quarter to quarter, even for dividend aristocrats. Learn how balance sheets, cash flow, and management decisions affect dividend sustainability.

Decide whether to reinvest dividends or take cash, and see how reinvesting compounds over time with examples such as General Mills.

Explore how companies decide to use excess cash, weighing options such as holding funds, spending on operations or research and development, investing in others, issuing dividends, or pursuing stock buybacks.

Learn why companies choose stock buybacks over dividends, boosting share price and earnings per share while shrinking the shareholder pool. Weigh the pros, cons, and potential management incentives.

Stock splits increase the number of shares while lowering price per share, keeping total investment, dividend payout, and yield unchanged; more shares offer flexibility.

Analyze key ratios from the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow, and compare dividend stocks within their sector to assess payout norms, yields, and structures including mlps and reits.

Learn to evaluate dividend stocks with quantitative and qualitative analysis, using fundamentals and technicals, dividend yield, payout ratio, and independent decision making.

Explore the key dividend ratios, including dividend yield, dividend per share, payout ratio, peg ratio, and price earnings growth, to evaluate and compare dividend stocks using fundamental analysis.

Identify dividend per share as the income paid per share, usually quarterly and on an annual basis. Track growth by how per-share payouts change over time, excluding special dividends.

Understand how dividend yield is calculated and used to compare stocks, bonds, and cash, plus why chasing higher yields can be risky.

Evaluate the dividend payout ratio, which equals dividends divided by net income on the income statement, to gauge sustainability and the risk of dividend cuts.

Explore how dividend growth rate drives long-term success for buy-and-hold investors by tracking dividend payouts and using annualized growth calculations, with examples like yum brands and johnson johnson.

Learn how the peg ratio refines the price-earnings measure by dividing the pe ratio by projected annual eps growth, helping identify undervalued stocks with strong growth potential.

Master Garp—growth at a reasonable price—blending growth and value to find undervalued stocks with growth potential. Assess qualitative and quantitative signals, including P/E and PEG, to ensure a reasonable price.

Evaluate stock value using the price-to-earnings ratio, comparing price to earnings per share and industry benchmarks to identify undervalued or overvalued stocks.

Use the price to sales ratio, defined as price per share divided by annual sales per share, to compare firms’ sales relative to price and assess value.

Assess how profit margin measures profit per sale by dividing net income by sales, and compare margins within an industry to gauge stock potential and the cash available for dividends.

Explore how the debt to equity ratio contrasts total liabilities with shareholder equity to assess a company's debt pressure and ability to service debt, relative to industry peers.

Anchor your portfolio with core mutual funds or index funds, then layer in 20–30 diversified stocks across growth, value, and dividend payers to balance risk.

Explore how drip and dividend reinvestment programs allow direct purchases from companies, with low fees and automatic reinvestment for passive income.

Explore dividend aristocrats, US large-cap S&P 500 companies with 25 years of dividend increases, and compare their bear-market resilience and long-term performance.

Explore the broad dividend achievers index, featuring about 250 stocks that have raised dividends for 10 straight years, including MLPs and REITs, with broader US exposure beyond Aristocrats.

Explore dividend champions, contenders, and european aristocrats beyond the U.S. Assess ten-year dividend raise histories, high-yield options, and drip investing tools.

Discover master limited partnerships (MLPs), high dividend investments in energy and natural resources. See how MLPs pass through income and trade on exchanges, with unique tax considerations.

Explore how an MLP like Enterprise Products Partners provides high dividend income through oil and natural gas pipelines, while highlighting dividend sustainability, diversification, and risk considerations in energy investments.

Explore real estate investment trusts (REITs) for liquid real estate exposure with regular dividends and pass-through income.

Explore preferred stock as a public-company, fixed-dividend, non-voting instrument that pays ahead of common stockholders in liquidation, and is callable and bond-like with interest-rate risk.

Learn how taxes affect investment returns, including capital gains, dividends, basis, and tax efficiency, and compare funds on fees and turnover.

Follow the five action steps plus a bonus step by reviewing goals, starting small with dividend-paying vehicles, and committing to lifelong learning.