dividend increase Best Dividend Stocks For 2015

Everyone loves the Dividend Champion stocks. What's not to like about companies that have 25+ year histories of increasing dividends each year? Currently, 105 companies have that track record.

Best Dividend Stocks For 2015 By Sector

TheStreet.com published an article yesterday by Ben Reynolds called 10 Best Dividend Stocks to Own in 10 Sectors in 2015 and Beyond. In it he talks about how dividend stocks have outperformed vs. the S&P over the last decade.

Ben's analysis led him to chose these 10 stocks (one per industry sector) as the best dividend stocks for 2015:

Sector Name Symbol Div Yield
Consumer Discretionary McDonald's MCD 3.7%
Consumer Staples Wal-Mart Stores WMT 2.3%
Energy Exxon Mobil XOM 3.0%
Financials Aflac AFL 2.6%
Healthcare Abbott Laboratories ABT 1.9%
Industrials W.W. Grainger GWW 1.7%
Information Technology ADP ADP 2.3%
Materials Sherwin-Williams SHW 0.9%
Telecommunications AT&T T 5.4%
Utilities Consolidated Edison ED 3.9%

Covered Calls on Ben's Dividend Stocks

All of these 10 stocks offer options, making them candidates for covered calls.

If you take those 10 symbols and plug them into Born To Sell's Watchlist feature, you find that all 10 offer strike prices that yield at least 1%/month or more on an annualized basis (i.e. their Annual Return If Flat is >= 12%) for the Jan 17 expiration date. And none of them have an earnings announcement prior to the Jan 17 option expiration:

Best dividend stocks for 2015

These are some of America's best companies, and certainly among the best and most consistent dividend payers out there. They cherish their dividend track record and it would take a lot of them to break their streak of 25+ years of dividend increases. Four of them yield 3% or more on the dividend alone. Layer in some covered calls and you've got an annual yield that blows away cash or bonds (albeit with some equity risk, yes).

Note: These are not trade recommendations. These are candidate trades based on Ben's suggested dividend stocks for 2015. Do your own research, keep position sizes modest, and stay diversified.

Mike Scanlin is the founder of Born To Sell and has been writing covered calls for a long time.

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