25 Best Canadian Dividend Stocks for U.S. Investors
Novice income investors often look for the highest-yielding dividend stocks, thinking more is more. What they fail to realize is that's a much riskier proposition than finding companies with more reasonable current yields that consistently grow their payouts over time.
In the U.S., the most hallowed group of dividend raisers are the Dividend Aristocrats - a group of 53 stocks that have improved their annual payout every year for at least 25 consecutive years. But America isn't the only part of the world with Aristocrats - Europe has them, and so does our neighbor to the north. In fact, there are 78 Canadian Dividend Aristocrats.
Qualification for aristocracy in Canada is a little different and less stringent. A member stock must be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and a member of the S&P Canada BMI (Broad Market Index), it must increase its annual payout for five consecutive years (it can maintain the same dividend for two consecutive years) and have a float-adjusted market cap of at least C$300 million.
We've trimmed the list down to 25 Canadian dividend stocks better suited for American investors. The following 25 Canadian Dividend Aristocrats are easier to buy, as they're listed on either the NYSE or Nasdaq, and we've raised the bar to a seven-year minimum of consecutive payout hikes. Here they are:
Algonquin Power & Utilities
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Market value: $4.9 billion
Dividend yield: 5.0%
Consecutive annual dividend increases: 8
Analysts' opinion: 10 buy, 2 hold
Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN, $10.36) is a Canadian utility company with 70 power generation facilities in the U.S. and Canada, serving more than 764,000 customers in three provinces and 13 states, including Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota.
The company's Liberty Power unit currently has more than $2 billion in capital investments
