Dividend CCC Review: June 2014

One word sums up this month's screen: "Slim Pickings". Ok well two words. After a nice 5 year bull market
This month's fields are:
Dividend score: Yield, 5 year dividend growth rate, payout ratio
Fundamental score: P/E, Graham valuation, 52 week low (how close is it to the 52 week low signifying a good entrance time)

Name	Symbol	Industry	Div	Fund	Score
Axis Capital Hold Ltd.	AXS	Insurance	2	6	8
Alliance Res Part LP	ARLP	MLP-Coal	5	2	7
NACCO Industries	NC	Machinery/Consumer	2	4	6
AFLAC Inc.	AFL	Insurance	2	4	6
Chubb Corp.	CB	Insurance	2	4	6
Deere & Company	DE	Farm Equipment	4	1	5
PSB Holdings Inc.	PSBQ	Banking	0	5	5
Textainer Group Hold	TGH	Transportation	3	1	4
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.	WMT	Retail-Discount	3	1	4
IBM	IBM	Technology-Hardware	2	2	4
Universal Corp.	UVV	Tobacco	0	4	4

For the life of me I cannot figure out why Excel isn't bordering the left edge. Luckily though this isn't the "Teaching ourselves Microsoft Office" Blog.

Companies quick to cross off

AFL: Already own and in fact added in recently.

TGH: Reviewed in past months. Too much floating rate debt.

WMT: Recently sold to rotate into another retailer.

IBM: Already own

UVV: I do not invest in tobacco

There was a dozen small banks but I am just going to start saving you guys reading time and remove them completely if I recognize them.

New companies for possible review

AXS, Axis Capital Holdings Ltd: A holding company with a mix of insurance and re-insurance companies. Its undervalued on Fastgraphs but it does have the re-insurance problem of regular collapsing EPS. My current insurance positions, AFL and AFSI, don't have this problem

ARLP, Alliance Resources Partners LP: A coal MLP. I looked at them awhile ago but I have a hard time getting excited about a U.S. coal mine. Its up +25% so far this year. I think at this point its too late to catch it and will watch for a pullback.

NC, NACCO Industries: A holding company about as weird as you can get. North American Coal Corporation which runs coal and limerock mines. Hamilton Beach kitchen, bar, and restaurant appliances, and Kitchen Collection stores that sell personla cooking equipment. This company peaked my interest until I saw it has had negative EPS growth for the past 10 years and -52 EPS in 2008.

PSBQ, PSB Holdings Inc: A holding company of a local bank that trades 80 shares a day. Boy we really got the whole trifecta right there of reasons to pass on this one.

This month's research screen winner

DE, Deere & Company: They keep coming up every other month or so and each time I say I might need to take a look at them.  Here is what Fastgraph's shows for diluted earnings.

Their debt level is really high and I am concerned at first glance that basic EPS is dropping but diluted is going through the roof. Different companies and different sectors will have different ways to look at EPS. Fastgraphs these days has 6 different EPS views. I'll need to research and learn more about DE before I pass judgement.

Disclaimer: The investments and trades discussed are not recommendations for others. I am not a financial planner, financial adviser, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.