Dividends Premium: August 2025

Robust Q2 results and 8 guidance boosts spur strong portfolio returns.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to the August Dividends Premium!

There’s no better sign your stocks are headed for big gains than when the underlying business raises earnings guidance. Both my top fresh money buys did so in the past two weeks. So did six other recommendations, as the portfolio reached a new high water mark this month, despite one notable loser.

As always, if you have questions issues, I invite you to join my Dividends Roundtable, which I host 24-7 on the Discord forum. It’s open to all Dividends Premium members.

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, whatever your plans--RC

Strong Results = Resilience and Reliable Gains

With the exception of one notable underperformer, 2025 continues to be a very good year for the investments in our income and growth portfolio. The average year to date return for my recommendations is now 18.7 percent.

That’s about 10 percentage points ahead of the S&P 500. And it’s also roughly 10 points better than the iShares Dividend ETF (DVY), used as a benchmark for many dividend focused portfolios.

To be sure, we’re not strictly benchmarking to those averages. For one thing, we have a current income objective in this portfolio. Neither the DVY nor S&P 500 ETFs do. That’s amply demonstrated by the fact this portfolio’s yield of 4.9 percent is actually 3.8 percentage more than S&P 500 ETFs. And it’s 1.3 points greater than what the DVY currently pays.

We also have a dividend growth objective, which we’ve consistently achieved over this service’s seven year history. And we’re on track to hit it again this year, despite the fact Black Stone Minerals (NYSE: BSM) has reduced its payout slightly due to weaker commodity prices. I still like this royalty trust as a holding because it will also increase its dividend when natural gas prices recover, which I expect.

But even with Black Stone’s temporary dividend reduction, we’re still on track for a low to mid-single digit percentage income boost on a weighted portfolio basis. And that compares to wildly erratic payouts at both S&P 500 ETFs and the DVY.

There’s still no shortage of hype surrounding the 8 Big Tech stocks that are now a record 35 percent of the weighted S&P 500 index. So it’s encouraging to see this strategy hold up to the commonly used benchmarks. And it’s proof positive that a slow and steady strategy like this one can still produce robust returns consistently.

Since inception, our model income and growth portfolio is ahead by 71.03 percent. That return is the change in principal plus accumulated dividends, which is added up distributions from both current and now closed positions. And it’s based on the assumption investors have harvested cash from distributions, rather than reinvested to produce a significantly higher return.

Last month I noted that the critical factor for our companies to add to their first half 2025 gains was for their underlying businesses must remain healthy and growing.

The earnings reports and guidance updates we’ve now seen for all these companies confirm that all are healthy with long-term growth and investment plans intact. That includes the one notable year-to-date loser in the portfolio, chemicals company LyondellBassell (NYSE: LYB).

I highlight those results and guidance for all of the current portfolio companies in the rest of this report, including current advice. The one change I’ve made is to increase the highest recommended entry point for Honda Motor (NYSE: HMC) to 33, following the automaker’s increase in its FY2026 guidance (end March 31).