These 3 Dividend Growth Stocks Just Gave Shareholders a Pay Raise: Kroger (KR), JPMorgan (JPM) and Matson (MATX)

I’m a diehard fan of the dividend growth investing strategy. This strategy has my allegiance because it’s so rewarding. I literally get paid to own high-quality dividend growth stocks.

That happens when I collect dividends from my stock holdings. Dividends are a portion of business profits returned to the shareholders.

Great businesses produce lots of profits and pay out lots of dividends. So you own shares in a great business, then get paid dividends. But it’s even better than that.

That’s because great businesses produce more profit year after year. And those dividends go up year after year, too. So I don’t just get paid to own high-quality dividend growth stocks. I get paid an ever-larger sum to own these stocks.

And these dividends are totally passive. This is totally passive growing dividend income. In a world where the costs of life are rising all the time due to inflation, you want to make sure your passive income can keep up.

Today, I want to tell you about three dividend growth stocks that just increased their dividends. Ready? Let’s dig in.

Dividend Increaser #1: Kroger (KR)

Kroger just increased their dividend by 16.7%.

It’s been said many times that successful long-term investing is actually quite boring. It should be like watching paint dry. Well, it’s hard to think of something more boring than a grocery store, yet there’s a lot of money to be made in this simple, boring, easy-to-understand business model. Moreover, it’s kind of difficult to argue that getting a 17% “pay raise” for doing nothing other than holding stock is boring. That’s exciting stuff.

This marks the 16th consecutive year of dividend increases for the supermarket chain.

What’s really incredible here is the dividend growth acceleration. Their 10-year dividend growth rate is 13.3%, which is already pretty impressive. But then you get a near-17% dividend increase here. That’s when you know a business is firing on all cylinders and management is very confident in the future. Plus, you’re layering that dividend growth on top of the stock’s market-beating yield of 2.1%.

The stock is up 24% YTD, but it doesn’t look overly expensive.

Most basic valuation metrics are roughly in line with their respective recent historical averages. And the 2.1% yield is actually 30 basis points higher than its five-year average. I wouldn’t say the stock is cheap. But it’s not unreasonable in this market, all things considered.

Dividend Increaser #2: JPMorgan (JPM)

JPMorgan Chase just increased their dividend by 11.1%.

I’ve gotta be honest here. I was actually expecting something a bit bigger from JPMorgan Chase after they passed the Fed’s latest stress test with flying colors. Still, it’s difficult to get too upset about an 11% increase in your pay – especially when you didn’t really do anything to receive it. I mean, I wouldn’t be unhappy if I still had a day job and my boss gave me an 11% raise in pay – after working hard day in and day out to receive it.

This is the 11th consecutive year of dividend increases for the multinational financial services company.

The stock now yields 2.6%. That market-beating yield is pretty attractive in this environment. Combining it with double-digit dividend growth makes it that much more attractive. With the bank reporting extraordinary numbers and buying back its own stock hand over fist, I expect this double-digit dividend growth to continue for the foreseeable future.

Want something else to like about this name? How about the valuation?

I like the valuation here. The P/E ratio is below 13. The yield is above its own five-year average. And they just handed out a sizable dividend increase. Plus, they’re run by arguably the best big bank CEO in America. I don’t know what else investors could want.

Dividend Increaser #3: Matson (MATX)

Matson just increased their dividend by a monstrous 30.4%.

Yeah, 30% more money for shareholders. For doing practically nothing. Being a shareholder is a great gig, I must say. This huge dividend boost is a bit of a surprise, as their five-year dividend growth rate is only 5.2%. Talk about dividend growth acceleration. This stock is killing it.

The shipping services company has now increased its dividend for 10 consecutive years.

The yield of 1.9% would kind of demand a higher dividend growth rate in order to make sense of the stock, and that’s exactly what Matson just delivered. With some of their more recent quarters showing amazing growth, Matson is positioned quite well. Business performance can justify some of the stock performance, which has been nothing short of breathtaking.

This stock is up 133% over the last year.

It’s absolutely crushed the broader market. Even with that, most of the stock’s basic valuation metrics aren’t out of line with where they’ve been, on average, over the last five years. Now, this kind of business can be quite cyclical in nature, so you have to be careful with that. That said, if there’s a sizable dip in this name, it would be something you’d want to have on your radar.

— 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.

The BEST Source of PASSIVE Income
Would you like to make money while you sleep and wake up to fresh money you didn't work for? Would you like to become financially independent and live off of passive income? Want to know the BEST form of passive income? I'm Jason Fieber, and I went from below broke at age 27 to financially free at 33 by living below my means and building passive income. I now get paid while I sleep, and I wake up to fresh passive income almost every single day. This is money I earn without having to do anything. No job to show up to. No work to do. I get paid for simply existing. Passive income is AWESOME. But not all "passive income" is the same. Some forms of passive income are definitely better than others. In this video, I talk about the BEST form of passive income. If not the best, it's definitely my favorite. After all, I'm able to live an early retirement dream lifestyle because of it!