Dividend Aristocrats are very impressive dividend growth stocks – and some of my favorite stocks. These are stocks that have increased their dividends for 25 or more consecutive years.

Well, there are some stocks out there that are even more impressive than Dividend Aristocrats. I’m talking about Dividend Kings.

These are stocks that have increased their dividends for 50 or more consecutive years. That’s akin to being a Dividend Aristocrat twice over.

Just imagine running your own business and having to write ever-larger dividend checks to your investors for 50 or more years in a row. Imagine how amazing of a business you’d have to run in order to accomplish something like that.

I mean, just surviving as a business for 50 years is difficult enough. Managing to produce rising profit year in and year out, like clockwork? Then paying out a growing dividend year in and year out, like clockwork?

For 50 or more years in a row? Nearly impossible. That’s why Dividend Kings are the cream of the crop when it comes to dividend growth stocks.

Today, I want to tell you about three Dividend Kings that you should consider putting in your portfolio, if you haven’t already. Ready? Let’s dig in.

Dividend King #1: American States Water (AWR)

American States Water is a water and electric utility company with a market cap of $3 billion.

Let me tell you something right now. Water is quickly becoming liquid gold. Oil was the liquid gold of the 20th century. Well, I think water is starting to displace oil and will become the liquid gold of the 21st century. In that new paradigm, there are few companies better positioned than American States Water. And even if you assume the future is no brighter than the past, that’s okay. Because the past has been amazing for this water company and its shareholders.

American States Water has increased its dividend for 66 consecutive years.

That’s the longest dividend growth streak in the world. This is the King among kings. It’s the kind of stock that can be a crown jewel of a dividend growth stock portfolio. While the stock only yields 1.7%, it’s the long-term compounding nature of the business that is so amazing. We put out a video back in March showing how this stock turned just $1,000 into almost $300,000 over 30 years.

This one of the most reliable dividend growth stocks I know of.

Bills are reliable, right? Well, you want your passive dividend income to be just as reliable, if not more so. Especially if you’re trying to live off your passive dividend income. With more than 60 straight years of higher dividends, and a 10-year dividend growth rate of 9.4%, this is about as reliable as it gets. The stock, with its P/E ratio over 32, doesn’t look super cheap. But in my more than 10 years of investing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this stock at a valuation that I’d consider cheap. You get what you pay for. And this is the creme de la creme.

Dividend King #2: Hormel Foods (HRL)

Hormel is a global branded food company with a market cap of $26 billion.

Food. Humans gotta have it in order to survive. So any company in the business of selling food is starting off on the right foot. Or so you’d think. In reality, every business thinks that, which is why so many businesses enter this space and create an incredibly competitive and difficult industry. Only the toughest survive. Hormel hasn’t just survived, though. It’s absolutely thrived.

Hormel has increased its dividend for 54 consecutive years.

That puts them in rare company when you look at all food companies on the planet. What’s particularly amazing about Hormel is the rate at which they’ve been growing their dividend. Their 10-year dividend growth rate is 16%. So not only have they increased their dividend for more than five straight decades in a row, they’ve been increasing that dividend at a double-digit rate decades into the dividend growth. This is a special business.

This Dividend King almost always looks worthy of long-term investment.

The thing about Dividend Kings like Hormel is, you don’t need to fine tune the valuation. You know you’re investing in a wonderful business that’ll take care of its shareholders and do extremely well over the long run. There’s no guesswork here. With its 2.1% yield, which is 30 basis points higher than its five-year average, you’re getting a nice current income stream here on top of that near-guaranteed dividend growth. The P/E ratio, at 29.5, could be lower, sure. If it dips, the stock would be even more appealing.

Dividend King #3: Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)

Johnson & Johnson is a multinational healthcare conglomerate with a market cap of $432 billion.

Perhaps my favorite dividend growth stock of all, Johnson & Johnson oozes quality from its every pore. There’s not a single aspect of this business that could be deemed to be low quality. I mean, its AAA-rated balance sheet exceeds the credit rating of the US government – a government that literally prints its own money. Want more evidence of quality?

Johnson & Johnson has increased its dividend for 59 consecutive years.

They’re coming up on 60 straight years of ever-higher dividends. That puts them in extremely limited company. There’s only a handful of companies in the whole world that have managed this kind of feat. And unlike the other two Dividend Kings, Johnson & Johnson actually offers some very nice income for investors right now. The stock yields 2.6%, so you don’t even need to wait for those dividend raises – which are pretty sure to come – in order to generate a sizable amount of dividend income from the investment.

This is a prototypical dividend growth stock that allows you to sleep well at night.

While meme stocks, cryptocurrency, and invisible sculptures keep speculators up at night, Johnson & Johnson just continues to make more and more money by selling the pharmaceuticals, consumer products, and medical devices the world demands. I’ve never heard of a Johnson & Johnson shareholder up all night worrying about their investment. It’s the kind of foundational dividend growth stock that can be a bedrock of a portfolio. With most basic valuation metrics not too far off from their respective recent historical averages, Johnson & Johnson looks reasonably valued. This is a Dividend King to strongly consider owning, if you don’t already.

— Jason Fieber

P.S. If you’d like access to my entire six-figure dividend growth stock portfolio, as well as stock trades I make with my own money, I’ve made all of that available exclusively through Patreon.

Source: DividendsAndIncome.com