Dividend Radar Explained

In this article, I explain the free tool, Dividend Radar. Before I proceed, I want to disclose that I am an Affiliate of Portfolio Insight*, which creates and publishes Dividend Radar. I provide affiliate links to Portfolio Insight in this article. I earn a commission for any purchases you make at the Affiliates’ website through these links. This will not incur additional costs for you. Please read my disclosure for more information. In addition, I want to disclose that I oversee and write stock investment research analyses on stocks for Portfolio Insight*.

Investors following the dividend growth strategy need a way to sort through data for dividend growth stocks like the Dividend Kings, Dividend Aristocrats, Dividend Champions, Dividend Contenders, or Dividend Challengers. Many sites track the number of years of dividend increases and other financial data, but they are not all the same or good. For instance, the number of years is often not correct, the data set may be limited, or the data may only have a limited history. Many tools are also behind a paywall.

A relatively new and free tool solving all these issues is Dividend Radar by the team at Portfolio Insight*. Below we review and explain Dividend Radar.

What is Dividend Radar?

Dividend Radar is a free MS Excel spreadsheet and is updated weekly. It consists of stocks increasing their annual dividend for 5+ consecutive years. The most recent version has 743 stocks on the list. The stocks in Dividend Radar are derived from the thousands of stocks in a database from S&P Global. Portfolio Insight* says the following,

The Dividend Radar is a free weekly Friday update of securities trading on U.S. markets that have consistently raised their yearly dividend payouts for at least five years.

This tool is licensed under the Creative Commons License. Hence, the tool and data are allowed for personal and commercial use without any registration requirement, free of charge.

Types of Stocks

Dividend Radar consists of dividend growth stocks categorized into Dividend Champions, Dividend Contenders, and Dividend Challengers. The categories were outlined by David Fish, who created the CCC list.

Dividend Champions are stocks that increased their dividend for 25+ years in a row. There is no other requirement, unlike the Dividend Aristocrats. Dividend Radar does not separate the Dividend Kings from Dividend Champions. However, users can manipulate the tables on their own.

Dividend Contenders have raised their dividends for 10 to 24 consecutive years. There is no other requirement.

Dividend Challengers have increased their dividends annually for five to nine years. There is no other requirement.

Handling Spin-Offs, Mergers and Stocks Splits

The rules-based approach is extended to when the dividend streak started and handling spin-offs, mergers, and stock splits.

Dividend streaks are started after a company pays a dividend for one full year.

In the case of a spin-off, the parent company’s dividend streak continues if the dividend is not cut during the process. However, the newly formed company does not inherit the former parent company’s dividend increase streak.

For example, when United Technologies (UTX) spun off Carrier Global (CARR) and Otis Worldwide (OTIS), only United Technologies retained the streak. The two new companies had their dividend increase streaks restarted at zero. 

In a merger, the majority company’s streak is inherited by the newly formed company. For example, United Technologies merged with Raytheon (RTN) and became Raytheon Technologies (RTX). The renamed company inherited the streak from UTX and has a dividend increase streak of 29 consecutive years.

Stock splits are implemented on the ex-dividend date. Therefore, shareholders must own a stock before the ex-dividend date to receive a dividend. The stock split adjusts the annual dividend payment rate to account for the change in shares.

Data in Dividend Radar

Dividend Radar contains a large amount of free basic data for investors. The spreadsheet includes the basics, like ticker symbol, company, sector, industry, stock price, the 52-week low, and the 52-week high.

In addition, the spreadsheet contains a large amount of divided data too. For example, it includes the dividend yield, 5-year average dividend yield, current quarterly dividend rate, previous quarterly dividend rate, number of payments per year, annual dividend rate, ex-dividend date, payment date, and the streak basis. In addition, dividend growth information for the trailing 1-year, 3-years, 5-years, and 10-years is presented.

Dividend Radar takes things one step further and includes fundamental performance, profitability, financial strength, and valuation data.

• Performance Data
  • EPS 1Y – TTM basic EPS growth
  • Revenue 1Y – TTM total revenue growth

• Profitability Data
  • NPM (Net Profit Margin) – TTM net income/total revenue
  • CF/Share (Cash Flow/Share) – TTM cash from operations/basic weighted outstanding shares
  • ROE – TTM return on equity

• Financial Strength
  • Current R (Current Ratio) – TTM total current assets/total current liabilities
  • ROTC – TTM return on total capital

• Valuation Metrics
  • P/E – TTM P/E
  • P/BV – TTM price/book value
  • PEG – TTM historical growth; calculated using P/E / (5-year basic EPS CAGR)

Lastly, Dividend Radar calculates the Chowder Number, the percentage above or below fair value. Additionally, it indicates if the stock is above fair value, at fair value, or in the margin of safety.

The three screenshots below show examples of the basic, fundamental, and calculated data found in Dividend Radar.

Advantages of Dividend Radar

The main advantage of Dividend Radar is automation. The list of dividend growth stocks is determined through an algorithm using a defined set of rules. Dividend growth streaks are calculated using ten different metrics, and the highest value is listed in Dividend Radar and Portfolio Insight*. This number is based on the dividend ex-date or declaration date for most stocks. The ten metrics are

• Ex-Date 
• Ex-Date excluding specials 
• Fiscal Year Ex-Date 
• Fiscal Year Ex-Date excluding specials 
• Payment Date 
• Payment Date excluding specials 
• Declaration Date 
• Declaration Date excluding specials 
• Adjusted Ex-Date 
• Adjusted Ex-Date excluding specials 

Automation results in more consistency and accuracy compared to manually curated lists. For example, the Dividend Radar found differences in the number of years for dividend streaks for 356 stocks compared to the baseline comparison of the old CCC list.

Next, Dividend Radar comes in a spreadsheet, making it accessible and usable by most everyone. In addition, the data can be repurposed for calculations by users. Data definitions can be found in the accompanying Data Dictionary.

Lastly, Dividend Radar is free.

Final Thoughts on Dividend Radar Explained

Dividend Radar is a valuable tool for dividend growth investors. It contains data needed to research stocks and make investment decisions. Users can sort through the data and rank order stocks by any one of the data metrics. For instance, it is possible to rank order and screen by dividend yield, dividend streak, payout ratio, and valuation metrics.

Investors should consider combining the free Dividend Radar with Portfolio Insight*, paid service for access to additional features such as all 9,000+ stocks and ETFs on the database, 20-years of financial data, charting, stock snapshots, portfolio management, dividend income forecasts, latest news and SEC filings, etc.

Portfolio Insight greatly expands the research and analysis capabilities for investors.

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