Smart Dividend Portfolio Edition: Profitable Protection
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Dear Investor,
Welcome to this edition of TipRanks’ Smart Dividend Portfolio & Newsletter.
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Market-Moving News: Mar 02, 2026
It was a turbulent weekend for global markets, as U.S. stock futures fell late Sunday night after the United States and Israel carried out strikes on Iran. The news pushed oil prices higher and added a new worry for stock investors. Brent crude oil prices jumped about 6% at the time of writing.
At the same time, investors moved money into safer assets. Gold futures rose about 2% as demand for safe-haven investments increased.
The strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several key leadership figures in Iran, causing major uncertainty regarding who will lead the country now. President Donald Trump said U.S. military operations in Iran were “ahead of schedule,” though investors are worried the situation could expand into a wider war and disrupt supply, since Iran is one of OPEC’s largest producers.
U.S. stocks closed lower for the week as sharp moves in media and AI names drove the tape. The S&P 500 (SPX) fell for the day, week, and month. The Nasdaq 100 (NDX) also slipped, while the Dow Jones (DJIA) fell 1.05%. The 10-year Treasury yield eased to 3.95%. At the same time, gold (CM:XAUUSD) rose to $5,296, oil (CM:CL) climbed to $67.29, and Bitcoin (BTC-USD) slid toward $66,000.
Even so, beneath the index level, the action was intense. Media, chips, and AI deals shaped the week, while health care and energy outperformed and tech lagged.
Last week’s top story in the media was Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) choosing a $31-per-share all-cash offer from Paramount Skydance (PSKY), turning down Netflix (NFLX). Netflix then declined to raise its bid and walked away.
Wall Street welcomed the move. Netflix shares jumped 13.82% on Friday. HSBC called it a “graceful exit,” adding that the move frees Netflix to refocus on its core business while rivals deal with review and deal risk. The bank also noted the $2.8 billion breakup fee, which it said is about 20% of Netflix’s 2026 estimated EPS. Paramount Skydance surged 21.02%, while Warner Bros. Discovery slipped.
At the same time, AI remained front and center. Nvidia (NVDA) posted a record quarter, with $68.1 billion in Q4 revenue. Of that, $62.3 billion came from data centers. The firm guided Q1 revenue to about $78 billion. Even so, shares were volatile as investors weighed how long heavy AI spending can last.
Meanwhile, Meta Platforms (META) deepened its AI push. The company signed a multiyear deal with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for up to 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs. That move came just days after Meta expanded its tie with Nvidia to deploy new Blackwell and Rubin systems.
In health care, Novo Nordisk (NVO) said its CagriSema drug failed to match Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide on weight loss at 84 weeks. Novo shares fell, while Eli Lilly (LLY) gained. Lilly also launched a four-dose Zepbound pen priced from $299 per month through LillyDirect, aiming to boost access.
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This Week’s Quality Dividend Stock Idea
Allstate (ALL) is a U.S.-based insurance company providing personal, commercial, and protection products to individuals and businesses. Its operations include auto, homeowners’, and renters’ insurance, as well as life insurance, annuities, and supplemental protection services. Allstate is one of the largest personal lines insurers in the United States, with a broad distribution network and a leading position in auto and homeowners’ insurance.
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Evolving Strength
Allstate’s corporate history reflects a steady transformation from a single-line auto insurer into one of the largest and most diversified personal lines insurance groups in the United States, with each stage of expansion closely tied to earnings growth, risk discipline, and capital efficiency. The company was founded in 1931 as an auto insurance unit of Sears, Roebuck & Co., created to provide affordable coverage directly to consumers through a mail-order model. This early emphasis on low-cost distribution and broad access allowed Allstate to scale rapidly alongside rising automobile ownership in the postwar era, establishing a foundation for durable underwriting profitability.
A major inflection point came in the early 1990s, when Sears spun off Allstate as an independent, publicly traded company. Independence sharpened management’s focus on underwriting discipline, risk selection, and brand building. During this period, Allstate expanded beyond auto insurance into homeowners and other personal lines, enabling the development of multi-policy customer relationships that improved retention and increased lifetime value. These changes helped smooth earnings volatility and strengthened performance across economic cycles.
Through the 2000s, Allstate pursued a combination of organic growth and targeted acquisitions to deepen scale and diversify revenue streams. The acquisition of Encompass Insurance expanded the company’s presence in the independent agent channel, complementing its large captive agent network and enhancing pricing and claims control. At the same time, Allstate built out life insurance, annuity, and supplemental product offerings, adding fee-based and spread income that supported results through different underwriting environments.
Following the global financial crisis, the company entered a more disciplined phase centered on capital efficiency and margin expansion. Allstate refined its risk appetite, invested in advanced data analytics to improve pricing precision, and exited or repriced underperforming segments. Portfolio actions, including the sale of certain life and annuity businesses, simplified operations and redirected capital toward higher-return property and casualty lines, contributing to structurally higher returns on equity.
Over the past decade, acquisitions and divestitures have continued to reshape Allstate’s earnings profile toward capital-light, fee-generating, and diversified sources of growth. The 2016 acquisition of SquareTrade established a leading consumer electronics protection platform, followed by the 2018 purchase of InfoArmor, which added identity protection capabilities. In 2020, Allstate acquired National General Insurance, significantly expanding its auto and homeowners footprint across independent and direct channels and strengthening its position in nonstandard auto. More recently, the 2024 acquisition of Kingfisher added mobile device lifecycle and protection capabilities to Allstate Protection Plans. In parallel, Allstate has streamlined its portfolio through the sale of its Employer Voluntary Benefits business in 2025 and the divestiture of its Group Health and employer stop-loss operations, further concentrating the company on core personal lines insurance and protection services.
Together, these strategic shifts illustrate a consistent pattern in Allstate’s evolution: scaling businesses where it sees durable underwriting or fee-based economics, exiting from lower-return activities, and redeploying capital toward areas that support more predictable earnings and long-term shareholder value.
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Profitable Scale
Allstate operates a diversified protection model designed to generate consistent underwriting profits, recurring fee-based income, and strong cash flow. The company’s primary revenue source is insurance premiums, supplemented by service fees and investment income from a large, conservatively managed investment portfolio funded by insurance float.
The foundation of Allstate’s earnings power is its Property-Liability segment, which includes auto and homeowners insurance. Pricing is driven by increasingly sophisticated data analytics that incorporate driving behavior, claims history, geographic risk, and inflation trends. Telematics, led by the Drivewise platform, enhances risk selection and pricing precision, helping align premiums more closely with expected losses. At the same time, scale in claims management and technology-driven processes improve loss control and settlement efficiency, allowing the company to adjust pricing dynamically across underwriting cycles while protecting margins during periods of elevated claims severity.
Beyond traditional insurance, Allstate has built a growing Protection Services platform that generates fee-based, recurring revenue with lower capital intensity. This business includes protection plans and extended warranties for consumer electronics, mobile devices, appliances, and identity protection, supported by acquisitions such as SquareTrade, InfoArmor, and Kingfisher. Protection Services diversifies earnings away from pure underwriting risk and provides more stable cash generation during periods of insurance market volatility.
Distribution is another core pillar of the model. Allstate operates a hybrid structure that combines exclusive agents, independent agents, and direct-to-consumer channels. This multi-channel approach expands market reach, supports customer acquisition across price points, and enables cross-selling, which improves retention and customer lifetime value. Multi-policy households tend to exhibit lower loss ratios and more predictable renewal behavior, reinforcing earnings durability.
Supporting these operating businesses is a sizable investment portfolio that has benefited from higher reinvestment yields. Management has modestly extended bond maturities to lock in today’s relatively attractive interest rates, reflecting the view that rates are near cyclical highs. This approach enhances future investment income without increasing credit risk, strengthening overall earnings resilience.
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Efficiency Engine
After several years of structural repair, Allstate’s strategy has moved firmly into a transformative growth phase. Since 2018, the company has reduced its expense ratio by 6.6 percentage points, lowering prices while maintaining margins. This structural cost advantage has become a competitive lever, enabling profitable growth rather than volume-driven expansion.
Claims management has been central to that efficiency improvement. Allstate is in the “middle innings” of a multi-year claims transformation of its claims transformation, meaning meaningful progress has already been made, but there is still substantial runway ahead, built largely on proprietary tools and artificial intelligence. These systems improve damage assessment, fraud detection, repair routing, and settlement accuracy, lowering loss costs while enhancing customer experience. Management believes these benefits will continue to compound as models improve with scale and data.
With a stronger cost base in place, the company has expanded distribution and modernized products to drive growth. The acquisition of National General has been fully integrated, strengthening Allstate’s position in nonstandard auto and expanding its reach in the independent agent channel.
Competition remains intense, particularly in auto insurance, but Allstate believes its three-channel distribution model, modernized products, and lower expense base allow it to compete effectively while maintaining target margins. In homeowners insurance, despite aggressive competition from mutual insurers, Allstate continues to grow faster than the market while delivering superior returns. Improvements in pricing sophistication and a higher mix of nonstandard auto have also reduced the impact of the traditional new-business profitability penalty, which refers to the tendency for newly written policies to be less profitable in their early life.
Product modernization has reinforced this expansion. Affordable, Simple, Connected (ASC) auto products are now available in more than 40 states, with homeowners and renters products rolled out across most of the country, while Custom360 offerings serve independent agents in over 30 states. These products are simpler to quote, easier to price, and more flexible for customers, improving conversion and retention. Marketing expenses have scaled from about $900 million in 2019 to $2.1 billion in 2025, with more targeted and data-driven execution. As a result, new personal-lines business has doubled, and total policies in force have risen from 33.5 million to 38.1 million, with growth balanced across channels and regions.
Affordability became a central theme in 2025, but management has been clear that this is being achieved through structural cost reduction rather than margin sacrifice. The SAVE1 program has reduced premiums for millions of customers by optimizing coverages, deductibles, and discounts, while ASC auto price cuts in multiple states lowered rates by an average of about 9%. Together, these actions reduced 2025 auto earned premium by roughly $810 million, or about 2%, while underwriting profitability remained strong. Management consistently emphasized that auto insurance is a cost-plus business, and sustainable affordability comes from lowering claims, litigation, and operating costs. Physical damage, bodily injury, and expenses remain the primary focus areas.
The regulatory backdrop is viewed as a potential upside lever. Legislative reforms in Florida aimed at curbing excessive litigation and inflated claims has already contributed to lower litigation costs and rate cuts, while Louisiana and Georgia are moving in a similar direction. While these reforms are at earlier stages, management sees them as important signals that policymakers are increasingly focused on the root causes of rising insurance costs rather than simply pressuring insurers to lower prices.
Customer retention has been pressured by structurally higher shopping for insurance activity since the pandemic, but new-business growth continues to outpace churn. Management expects retention to improve as affordability initiatives gain traction and more customers migrate to ASC products. New York and New Jersey represent additional growth opportunities, with ASC auto approved in New Jersey for a February 2026 launch and New York approval expected, which should allow profitable growth in both states.
Longer term, the company views autonomous vehicles as a gradual evolution rather than a near-term disruption. With more than two trillion miles of telematics data and a massive installed base of traditional vehicles, Allstate expects accident frequency to decline over time while severity rises due to higher repair costs. Management believes its data assets and in-house claims technology position the company well to adapt as vehicle technology evolves.
Finally, management addressed the decline in premium per policy reported in the fourth quarter, emphasizing that it was intentional. Deliberate price cuts and coverage optimization under the SAVE program lowered average premiums, but profitability remained strong because these reductions were funded by cost efficiencies rather than weaker underwriting discipline. For investors, the decline in premium per policy reflects a strategic choice to improve affordability and retention while sustaining margins, reinforcing the durability of Allstate’s earnings model.
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1-Allstate’s S.A.V.E program (Specialty Auto Value Enhancement program) is intended to improve customer retention by increasing bundling of insurance products and migration to ASC products to turn strong customer acquisition into more durable and profitable relationships.
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Profit Surge
Over the past five years, Allstate’s financial performance has strengthened materially, with revenues and earnings per share growing at a CAGR of 9.5% and 16.6%, respectively. This expansion has been driven by sustained premium growth, rising policies in force, and a sharp recovery in underwriting profitability under the company’s Transformative Growth strategy. Margin improvement, disciplined capital allocation, and ongoing share repurchases have further amplified earnings per share, marking a clear transition from a period of pressured results to one of meaningfully stronger profitability and returns.
Indeed, it was a standout year for Allstate, marked by record profitability, improving underwriting discipline, and increasingly shareholder-friendly capital returns. The company closed Q4 2025 with total revenues of $17.3 billion, exceeding estimates, and bringing full-year revenues to $67.7 billion, reflecting strong momentum across its core businesses. Net income attributable to common shareholders reached $3.8 billion in the fourth quarter, doubling from $1.9 billion a year earlier, while full-year net income climbed to $10.2 billion. On an adjusted basis, earnings were equally impressive, with Q4 adjusted net income of $3.8 billion, or $14.31 per share, again beating estimates and full-year adjusted net income of $9.3 billion, or $34.83 per share, both representing record levels for the company.
This earnings strength was driven primarily by a sharp turnaround in the Property-Liability segment, which once again proved to be the engine of Allstate’s recovery. In auto insurance, the combined ratio, a measure of claims and expenses as a percentage of premiums, improved by roughly 10 points, with the underlying combined ratio, excluding catastrophes and reserve releases, settling near 90%. Importantly, profitability remained strong even as the company delivered meaningful price relief to millions of customers. Homeowners insurance performed even better, posting a reported combined ratio of 84.4% in FY25 and an underlying ratio of 57.9%, well ahead of management’s low-60s target. Over the past decade, Allstate’s homeowners business has averaged a combined ratio of 92.0%, underscoring a durable competitive advantage. Management also highlighted that homeowners premiums are growing faster than auto, suggesting a longer runway for expansion in this segment.
Beyond Property-Liability, Protection Services continued to scale steadily. Policies in force rose to 172 million, up 3.3% year-over-year in FY25, while revenues increased 11.7% to $3.3 billion. Adjusted net income for the full year reached $218 million, supported by strong performance in Protection Plans, which saw earnings jump 32% in the fourth quarter. International operations, particularly in Europe, delivered standout growth of nearly 40%, driven by new mobile and electronics protection partnerships.
Investment results added another layer of support. The investment portfolio expanded from $73 billion to $83 billion, generating a 6.1% total return on market-based assets. Management maintained a disciplined approach to private markets, including selling $270 million of secondary positions and moderating new commitments.
Balance sheet strength has improved alongside earnings. Book value per share, which represents shareholders’ equity divided by shares outstanding, increased by around 50% year-over-year to $108.45 in FY25. The debt-to-equity ratio improved to 24.5% in FY25 from 37.7% a year earlier. Allstate maintains long-term credit ratings of “A3” from Moody’s and “BBB+” from S&P, both with stable outlooks.
Looking ahead, the company expects catastrophe losses, defined as costs from large-scale natural disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and severe storms, of approximately $175 million for January, or $138 million after tax, driven primarily by winter storm Fern that affected large parts of the U.S.
For comparison, ALL reported estimated catastrophe losses of $80 million in December, or $64 million on an after-tax basis. The sequential increase underscores the impact of heightened winter weather activity early in the year, while remaining within the range of typical seasonal catastrophe exposure for the company.
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Capital Compounding
Allstate has built a long and consistent record of returning capital to shareholders, supported by improving fundamentals and strong cash generation. The company has paid dividends for 32 consecutive years and raised its payout for 16 straight years, with the dividend growing at an annual rate of roughly 13% over the past decade. That growth reflects management’s confidence in earnings durability, while the payout ratio remains conservative at about 14% of adjusted earnings, leaving ample room for reinvestment and additional capital returns. The stock currently offers a dividend yield of around 1.9%, above the financial sector average, and the most recent 8% increase lifted the quarterly dividend to $1.08, payable on April 1, 2026.
Share repurchases form the second pillar of Allstate’s capital return strategy. In 2025 alone, the company returned more than $2.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. Over the past decade, it has reduced its share count by roughly 39% and has authorized a new $4 billion repurchase program to follow the completion of the existing $1.5 billion plan, which is set to conclude in the first quarter of 2026.
Over the past year, Allstate’s stock has risen by 6.2%, due to a clear improvement in underlying fundamentals. The stock’s strong run has been powered by a complete reversal from underwriting losses to exceptional profitability, driven by disciplined rate increases, moderating claims trends, favorable catastrophe experience, and a sharper strategic focus through asset sales and capital returns.
However, the company’s valuation metrics tell a different story. Allstate’s current valuation reflects a notable disconnect from both its own history and peer benchmarks. Based on non-GAAP trailing and forward P/E ratios, the stock is trading at a discount of more than 35% to its historical averages, while trailing and forward price-to-book and trailing price-to-cash flow ratios also sit below long-term norms. Together, these measures suggest that the market is assigning a meaningfully lower multiple to Allstate than it has historically.
Compared with other insurers like Progressive, Travelers, and Chubb, the stock trades in the low valuation range on both non-GAAP trailing and forward P/E ratios. This suggests that the market is pricing the stock conservatively despite solid fundamentals. If earnings remain durable, investors can benefit not only from ongoing profit growth but also from potential multiple expansion as sentiment normalizes. This combination of discounted valuation and resilient earnings makes the stock attractive for long-term investors seeking quality at a reasonable price.
Analyst sentiment around Allstate remains optimistic, as the company’s sustained margin expansion and accelerating revenue point to durable pricing discipline, improved underwriting, and operational fixes, lifting cash generation and creating a buffer against near-term cyclical swings. A healthier balance sheet enhances financial flexibility, supporting consistent capital returns while reducing solvency and refinancing risk. At the same time, scale-driven market share gains and expanding protection services diversify revenue, lower unit costs, and support more stable long-term earnings growth.
These fundamentals are reflected in valuation expectations, although forecasts vary widely. Consensus estimates suggest roughly 12% upside from current levels, while more optimistic projections point to potential gains of up to 31%. Against this backdrop, discounted cash flow analysis indicates that Allstate is trading at an estimated 67% discount to its intrinsic value, positioning the stock as an attractive value opportunity for long-term investors.
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Investing Takeaway
For income-focused investors, Allstate stands out as a durable and increasingly reliable source of shareholder income. The company’s long history of dividend payments reflects a culture of disciplined capital management and confidence in the stability of its earnings base. Importantly, dividend growth is supported not by financial engineering, but by structurally stronger underwriting, improving cost efficiency, and resilient cash generation across insurance and protection services. A conservative payout approach provides a meaningful margin of safety, allowing dividends to be sustained through underwriting cycles while preserving flexibility for reinvestment and share repurchases. As operational improvements continue to lift profitability, Allstate appears well-positioned to compound income over time. For investors seeking a blend of dependable income, balance-sheet strength, and the potential for rising payouts, Allstate offers an attractive long-term income proposition anchored in fundamentally improving business quality.
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Dividend Investor Portfolio
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Portfolio News
▣ Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) reported solid fiscal first-quarter results on February 24, underscoring improving earnings momentum across its diversified franchise. Adjusted earnings came in at $1.50 per share, up from $1.29 a year earlier and ahead of consensus expectations, driven by stronger net interest income and higher fee revenue. Total revenue increased at a high-single-digit pace, with wealth management income rising about 18% year-over-year, reflecting higher assets under management and improved market conditions. The capital markets division posted roughly 5% growth, supported by a recovery in advisory and underwriting activity, while Canadian banking revenue rose around 5% on better margins. International banking delivered close to 10% growth, led by Latin American operations. Return on equity improved meaningfully and is tracking toward management’s medium-term target of over 14%, reinforcing confidence in the bank’s turnaround trajectory.
▣ BlackRock’s (BLK) ex-dividend date is March 06, and the payment date is March 24.
▣ EOG Resources (EOG) reported strong fourth-quarter 2025 results, beating consensus expectations as adjusted earnings per share of $2.27 topped estimates and production climbed to about 1.40 million barrels of oil-equivalent per day compared with the prior year. Higher natural gas realizations helped offset lower oil prices, supporting robust margins and operational performance. For FY25, the company generated approximately $4.7 billion in free cash flow, achieved a 19 % return on capital employed, and increased proved reserves by around 16 %. Management outlined a disciplined 2026 plan with capital expenditures of roughly $6.3 billion–$6.7 billion, targeting modest oil growth and expanded gas production while maintaining strong cash returns to shareholders through dividends and repurchases. EOG also emphasized continued cost efficiencies and operational execution to support resilience and long-term value creation.
▣ The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a key appeal in a climate-related lawsuit involving ExxonMobil (XOM) and Suncor, a case that could shape how state and local governments pursue climate liability claims nationwide. Separately, a U.S. District Court judge in Texas dismissed Exxon’s defamation lawsuit against several environmental groups that the company had accused of undermining its plastics recycling business, while allowing Exxon’s related lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta to proceed. Bonta’s suit alleges Exxon conducted a decades-long campaign of misleading statements around plastics and “advanced recycling,” contributing to pollution. Exxon has denied the claims, arguing that California officials and aligned nonprofits are shifting blame for ineffective recycling policies. In another Supreme Court matter, Exxon is also seeking more than $1 billion in compensation under the Helms-Burton Act for oil and gas assets seized by Cuba in 1960, a ruling that could open the door to broader expropriation claims.
Shares of both EOG and XOM jumped yesterday amid the conflict in the Middle East.
▣ Honeywell (HON) has agreed to revise the terms of its planned acquisition of Johnson Matthey’s catalyst technologies business, lowering the purchase price by roughly 26% to about $1.8 billion. The renegotiation follows weaker-than-expected performance at the unit and includes an extension of the transaction’s closing deadline into the mid-2026. By resetting valuation expectations, the revised terms helped prevent a potential breakdown of the deal while allowing Honeywell to maintain its strategic push into catalysts and sustainable fuels, areas seen as important to its long-term growth and decarbonization strategy. For Johnson Matthey, however, the revised agreement was viewed less favorably by the market, with its shares coming under pressure following the announcement, reflecting investor concerns over asset value and execution risk.
▣ IBM (IBM) became another victim of Anthropic’s new AI release batch, as the stock tumbled by about 13% last Monday, marking its worst one-day drop since October 2000. Anthropic said that its Claude Code tool can now automate key parts of COBOL modernization, potentially compressing multi-year, consultant-heavy projects into quarters. This sparked fears that the tech giant’s legacy business could be in trouble.
COBOL, a programming language from 1950s, still powers critical backend systems in banking, insurance, government, and airlines – running on IBM mainframes and generating massive recurring revenue through hardware, software licensing, maintenance, consulting, and ecosystem lock-in. Modernizing away from COBOL has historically been extremely expensive, slow, risky, and talent-scarce. If enterprises can more easily escape COBOL and mainframe lock-in, they theoretically may reduce their dependence on IBM’s high-margin ecosystem.
However, dip-buyers stepped in on Tuesday, as analysts including CFRA, Evercore ISI, and Jeffries maintained their Buy ratings and price targets, arguing the AI threat is considerably overblown. IBM’s mainframe value proposition remains intact given full-stack optimization for transaction processing, and new AI tools may actually extend COBOL system relevance by aiding knowledge transfer as experts retire.
▣ JPMorgan Chase (JPM) projected mid-teens year-over-year growth in Q1 2026 investment banking fees, alongside a year-over-year increase in markets (trading) revenue, led primarily by fixed income. Management maintained its full-year expense outlook and reaffirmed a ~17% return on tangible common equity (ROTCE) target for 2026, signaling confidence in profitability and operating discipline under CEO Jamie Dimon. Dimon also stated he expects to remain CEO for several more years, reinforcing leadership continuity.
▣ Kroger (KR) is approaching its Q4 earnings release with mixed signals as investors weigh near-term trends and recent operational moves. Consensus estimates for the quarter point to EPS around $1.20, a slight increase from the prior year, and revenue near $35.2 billion, implying modest top-line growth. Former guidance for FY2025 projected adjusted EPS of roughly $4.70 at midpoint and identical-store sales growth of 2–3%, suggesting Kroger expects steady, if unspectacular, consumer demand. The retailer has also faced broader strategic challenges, including recent store closures following the failed Albertsons merger and ongoing competitive expansion by discounters, which investors will be watching closely.
▣ PepsiCo’s (PEP) ex-dividend date is March 06, and the payment date is March 31.
▣ Qualcomm’s (QCOM) ex-dividend date is March 05, and the payment date is March 26.
▣ VICI Properties (VICI) reported a solid finish to fiscal 2025, with fourth-quarter revenue of roughly $1.0 billion, up about 3.8% year-over-year, beating Street estimates, and adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) rising nearly 6.8% to $642.5 million, or $0.60 per share — underscoring steady cash-flow growth in its net-lease portfolio. For the full year, revenue grew over 4% to about $4 billion, net income increased around 3–4%, and AFFO climbed over 6%, supporting the REIT’s eighth consecutive annual dividend increase of $0.45 per share. Management highlighted disciplined capital deployment, with approximately $2.1 billion in high-yield experiential real estate commitments during 2025, and maintained a stronger balance sheet with solid liquidity and leverage in target ranges. Executives emphasized durable per-share returns and recurring cash flow as key strengths for the current year.
Recent Trades
None at the moment, although we are considering adding a stock to our portfolio when the market conditions allow for an attractive entry point. Stay tuned.
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Portfolio Attributes
| Dividend Portfolio Yield |
Expected Dividend Growth | Expected Annual Income |
| 3.98% | +5.48% | $6,120.09 |
| Yield-on-Cost Adjusted, Weighted |
Average Analyst 12-Month Growth Outlook | 10K Per Stock at the Time of Purchase |
Current Portfolio
| Name | EX-Dividend Date | Payment Date | Yield on Cost | Annual DPS |
| Automatic Data Processing (ADP) | Mar 13, 2026 | Apr 01, 2026 | 2.46% | $6.80 |
| Amgen (AMGN) | May 19, 2026 | Jun 09, 2026 | 3.27% | $9.52 |
| BlackRock (BLK) | Jun 05, 2026 | Jun 23, 2026 | 2.61% | $22.92 |
| Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) | Apr 01, 2026 | Apr 28, 2026 | 5.98% | $3.21 |
| EOG Resources (EOG) | Apr 16, 2026 | Apr 30, 2026 | 3.06% | $4.08 |
| ExxonMobil (XOM) | May 15, 2026 | Jun 10, 2026 | 3.64% | $4.12 |
| Honeywell International (HON) | May 18, 2026 | Jun 08, 2026 | 2.39% | $4.76 |
| IBM (IBM) | May 12, 2026 | Jun 10, 2026 | 3.14% | $6.72 |
| JPMorgan Chase (JPM) | Apr 07, 2026 | Apr 30, 2026 | 3.43% | $6.00 |
| Kroger (KR) | May 15, 2026 | Jun 01, 2026 | 3.08% | $1.40 |
| Cisco Systems (CSCO) | Apr 07, 2026 | Apr 28, 2026 | 2.22% | $1.68 |
| PepsiCo (PEP) | Jun 05, 2026 | Jun 26, 2026 | 3.8% | $5.69 |
| Philip Morris (PM) | Mar 24, 2026 | Apr 14, 2026 | 6.06% | $5.88 |
| Qualcomm (QCOM) | Jun 05, 2026 | Jun 26, 2026 | 2.36% | $3.56 |
| VICI Properties (VICI) | Mar 27, 2026 | Apr 07, 2026 | 5.22% | $1.8 |
| Verizon (VZ) | Apr 13, 2026 | May 05, 2026 | 6.09% | $2.76 |
NameEX-Dividend DatePayment DateYield on Cost Annual DPS
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Click here for more stock market analysis from TipRanks Macro & Markets research analyst Yulia Vaiman
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Disclaimer
The information contained in this article represents the views and opinions of the writer only, and not the views or opinions of TipRanks or its affiliates and should be considered for informational purposes only. TipRanks makes no warranties about the completeness, accuracy, or reliability of such information. Nothing in this article should be taken as a recommendation or solicitation to purchase or sell securities. Nothing in the article constitutes legal, professional, investment, and/or financial advice and/or takes into account the specific needs and/or requirements of an individual, nor does any information in the article constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters or subject discussed therein. TipRanks and its affiliates disclaim all liability or responsibility with respect to the content of the article, and any action taken upon the information in the article is at your own and sole risk. The link to this article does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by TipRanks or its affiliates. Past performance is not indicative of future results, prices, or performance.
