Please stay tuned for important disclosure information at the conclusion of this episode.

Welcome to Investing Insights. I'm your host, Ivana Hampton. A dividend paying streak sends a strong signal. It shows that a company has grown its earnings enough to support dividend increases

and reflects the firm's commitment to returning cash via dividend as opposed to share repurchases.

Morningstar Dividendant Investor newsletter has highlighted more than a dozen companies that have pulled

it off for five straight years. I spoke with the newsletter's editor, David Harold, about this year's class of dividend growers.

Thanks for being here, David.

That's great to be back.

Well, you research which dividend paying stocks qualified for a spot on dividend investors,

annual dividend growers list.

This is where we got the story, everybody.

Let's start with the criteria.

Sure.

So I was looking, first of all, for stocks that had increased their per share dividend payout

by at least 10% for five consecutive calendar years.

So the version we did for that issue, we were looking at

2020, 21, 22, 23, and 24. So at least 10% a year. I did not penalize companies that may have

paid a special dividend, you know, an extra 50 cents somewhere in there and then not done that

the following years. I didn't think that was fair. So I was really looking only at their regular dividend payout. But then I was also looking

for firms that either had a wide or narrow economic moat rating from Morning Start equity analysts,

a low or medium uncertainty rating, and then also had a current yield of at least 1%.

So it ended up being a short list, but with the caveat that there are probably some other

firms out there that would meet the 10% a year criteria, but because I was limiting it to

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