Southern Company (SO) has been named as the ”Top Dividend Stock of the Dow Utilities”, according to Dividend Channel, which published its most recent ”DividendRank” report.
The report noted that among the components of the Dow Jones Utility Average, SO shares displayed both attractive valuation metrics and strong profitability metrics.
The report also cited the strong quarterly dividend history at Southern and favorable long-term multi-year growth rates in key fundamental data points.
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The report stated, ”Dividend investors approaching investing from a value standpoint are generally most interested in researching the strongest most profitable companies, that also happen to be trading at an attractive valuation. That’s what we aim to find using our proprietary DividendRank formula, which ranks the coverage universe based upon our various criteria for both profitability and valuation, to generate a list of the top most ‘interesting’ stocks, meant for investors as a source of ideas that merit further research.”
The Dow Jones Utility Average, or ”Dow Utilities” for short, was created in 1929 when all utility stocks were removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is one of the most widely followed indices, covering the most prominent utility companies in the United States.
Click here to see the most popular ETF that follows the Dow Utilities, and see the components and their weights, at ETFChannel.com »
The current annualized dividend paid by Southern Company is $2.24 per share, currently paid in quarterly installments, and its most recent dividend has an upcoming ex-date of 05/12/2016. Below is a long-term dividend history chart for SO, which the report stressed as being of key importance.
Indeed, studying a company’s past dividend history can be of good help in judging whether the most recent dividend is likely to continue.
