Prices and Yields

With the prices of stocks falling as much as they have this past week, an investor would expect dividend yields to be at all time highs. And in many cases that's exactly what's happened. But stocks don't fall simply for the benefit of Dividend Growth Investors. They often fall because either investors recognize that the fundamentals no longer support those lofty prices or that the fundamentals are beginning to deteriorate soon.

One way to see if an investor is paying too much for a stock is by looking at the stock's PEG. It's the multiple of the earnings growth rate and ideally you'd like to pay less than the growth rate, or a PEG <1. The other thing to look at is the payout ratio. Any company that's paying out more than 100% of earnings in dividends can't continue to do that for long because they're either shrinking the company or borrowing the money. And that's not good for the long term holder.

Below is a list of companies that many Dividend Growth Investors like to invest in and it shows the current yield, PEG and Payout Ratio. Hopefully this will give me a few ideas for further research and steer me away from some companies that really should be left for others to invest in. 

Company
​3M Co.
Abbott Laboratories
AbbVie
AFLAC
Air Products & Chemicals
Archer Daniels Midland
AT&T
Automatic Data Processing
Becton, Dickinson
Bemis Company
Brown-Forman
Cardinal Health
Chevron
Cincinnati Financial
Cintas
Colgate-Palmolive
Consolidated Edison
CR Bard
Dover
Ecolab
Emerson Electric
Exxon Mobil
Franklin Resources
Genuine Parts
HCP
Hormel Foods
Illinois Tool Works
Johnson & Johnson
Kimberly-Clark
Leggett & Platt
Lowe's Companies
McCormick & Co
McDonald's
McGraw Hill Financial
Medtronic
Nucor
Pepsico
PPG Industries
Procter & Gamble
Stanley Black & Decker
Sysco 
T. Rowe Price Group
Target
The Chubb Corp
The Clorox Co
The Coca-Cola Co
The Sherwin-Williams Co
V.F. Corp
W.W. Grainger 
Walgreen
Wal-Mart
​

Yield
​2.92%
2.56%
4.10%
2.89%
2.72%
3.26%
5.72%
2.71%
1.85%
2.53%
1.50%
1.85%
5.21%
3.31%
1.24%
2.43%
3.91%
0.53%
2.90%
1.34%
4.31%
​3.91%
2.14%
​3.13%
​6.21%
​1.48%
​2.62%
3.06%
2.81%
3.17%
1.58%
​2.06%
3.08%
​1.49%
2.06%
4.12%
​2.89%
1.52%
3.49%
2.28%
​3.12%
3.18%
3.14%
​1.77%
​2.44%
3.18%
1.11%
​2.54%
2.40%
1.78%
​3.08%

PEG
2.49
2.38
1.81
3.70
1.42
8.00
6.67
2.50
3.11
2.20
3.57
1.59
----
----
1.96
3.46
6.03
​10.08
3.06
2.26
1.81
----
----
​3.46
​22.30
1.71
​2.08
​3.51
10.68
1.60
1.31
​3.71
​3.03
​----
5.62
1.81
4.67
​1.86
2.99
1.56
​4.43
1.71
1.53
2.73
3.61
9.34
1.27
2.23
3.95
1.42
​11.36

Payout Ratio
49.90%
31.70%
113.40%
27.20%
53.80%
37.40%
126.40%
61.40%
69.20%
44.80%
38.40%
35.00%
92.40%
46.30%
37.10%
54.90%
68.80%
25.10%
28.80%
34.80%
46.70%
60.00%
14.30%
52.00%
430.80%
38.50%
39.30%
54.80%
212.20%
66.10%
​32.10%
50.30%
73.10%
995.50%
70.60%
75.60%
79.90%
32.20%
96.00%
41.30%
109.10%
​42.30%
----
25.30%
59.40%
​82.00%
24.10%
52.50%
30.50%
33.70%
41.70%