Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending April 3

Below we provide a list of firms that raised their dividends during the week ending April 3. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week Bank OZK (OZK): now $0.27 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.26. H.B. Fuller (FUL): now $0.1625 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.16. InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG): now $0.839 per share semi-annual dividend, was $0.399. MV Oil Trust (MVO): now $0.205 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.190. New Residential Investment 6.375 CUM PFD C (NRZ.PC): now $0.4029 per share quarterly dividend. Sabine Royalty Trust (SBR): now … Read more

Fantasy Yields Are For Fools

Brian Nelson, CFA We spend a lot of time talking about the safety of a firm’s dividend. In fact, we were the pioneers of the Dividend Cushion ratio, a comprehensive cash-flow based measure of the health of a firm’s dividend that takes into consideration all aspects of the company’s financial statements – not just the relationship between dividends per share and earnings per share, the payout ratio. As readers have come to learn, if a company’s Dividend Cushion ratio is below 0, there is significant risk to the sustainability of the payout. Most recently, the Dividend Cushion ratio highlighted the substantial risk related to Seadrill’s (SDRL) payout (in advance of the suspension), and the Cushion, as we call it here … Read more

Black Gold! Crude Oil Prices Leap to ~$50

Key Takeaways: After being negative throughout much of the collapse in energy resource prices during 2014-2015, Valuentum has been market-neutral on the energy sector since October of last year, and the newsletter portfolios have participated in the bounce in energy shares from January 2016 via the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE). The Dividend Cushion ratio, which is a forward-looking cash-flow based metric of dividend health, flagged the risk of every dividend cut, without fail, in the Independent Oil & Gas industry in advance of the event: Anadarko (APC), Cenovus (CVE), Cimarex (XEC), Devon Energy (DVN), Noble Energy (NBL), and Range Resources (RRC). We’ll walk through the degree of capital cuts across the Independent Oil & Gas industry, the group’s efforts … Read more