Two Outstanding Dividend Stocks

When the Dow Jones Industrial Index was created it contained only 12 companies. One of these original companies was General Electric (NYSE: GE), and today GE is the only company to have been continuously included in the index over its entire history. During that time GE has grown to be one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. While GE's financial arm nearly led to catastrophe during the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the company has scaled down this division to reduce risk. In 2006 half of GE's profits came from the financial division while it’s now closer to a third.

Both Honeywell and 3M avoided cutting their dividends due to the financial crisis, although Honeywell failed to increase it on a couple of occasions over the past decade. Honeywell's dividend has grown at an annualized rate of 8.22% over the past decade while 3M's dividend saw slower growth of 6.67%. With yields around 2.3% for both companies this slow growth makes Honeywell and 3M look unattractive from a dividend perspective.

Source: Motley Fool

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