Dividend ruler stocks portfolio by UBS

Swiss bank UBS maintains a portfolio of American and European dividend stocks that are listed on US Exchanges. The current 30-stock portfolio is up 5.2% in 2014 as of October 3rd.

To be added to the Dividend Ruler Portfolio a stock must meet 4 criteria.

First of all the dividend yield must be attractive, which means at least equal to the average yield for the S&P500-index (currently about 2%).

Second the company must have solid fundamentals/valuation and must be included on the sector outperform list from UBS' Wealth Management Research when added to the Dividend Ruler Portfolio.

CHECK THE DIVIDEND ARISTOCRATS HERE

Third the company should have a 10-year compound annual dividend growth rate of at least 4%.

Fourth and last, there should be a historical dividend consistency, which is measured by UBS using R-squared of the past 40 quarters of dividends per share paid.



REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) are excluded from the Dividend Ruler stocks portfolio because they are not eligible for the lower dividend income tax rate on qualified dividend income.

To calculate the total return for the portfolio UBS bases the performance on capital appreciaton plus dividends, excluding transaction costs such as trading fees, margin fees etc.

CURRENT DIVIDEND RULER STOCKS
The current portfolio exists out of 30 stocks, all listed on US stock exchanges, including ADRs of European dividend stocks.

As of October 3rd 2014 the UBS dividend ruler stocks are (sorted alfabetically):

UNITED STATES
- AFLAC
- Boeing
- Coca-Cola
- Colgate-Palmolive
- Dominion Resources
- Emerson Electric
- Illinois Tool Works
- Intel
- Invesco
- Johnson & Johnson
- Medtronic
- Microsoft
- NextEra Energy
- Nordstrom
- Northeast Utilities
- Occidental Petroleum
- Qualcomm
- Stanley Black & Decker
- Travelers
- Union Pacific
- United Parcel Service
- United Technologies
- VF Corp
- Yum! Brands

EUROPE
- British American Tobacco
- Diageo
- Novartis
- Pearson
- Roche
- Toronto-Dominion Bank

Currently the average dividend yield for the 30 Dividend Ruler stocks is 2.7%. As of 3 October 2014 the portfolio is up 5.2%, with a total return of +199.9% since it's inception in 2003.


In 2014 already 7 changes were made to the portfolio with the addition of Dominion Resources, Invesco, Qualcomm, Roche, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Travelers and Union Pacific.