Dividend Dispatch — Header
| 💰 |
| Dividend Dispatch |
| Income is everywhere. I find it. |
|
|
| TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 2026·6 min read |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dividend Dispatch — Today's Theme
| Today's Theme |
| Caterpillar's 32nd raise lands this month — plus the King with 66 years |
| Markets opened June at fresh records — S&P 500 at 7,599.96, Nasdaq at 27,086.81, Dow at 51,078.88. Nvidia jumped 6% on its new PC chip launch. But the news that mattered yesterday: U.S. Central Command confirmed airstrikes on Iranian radar and drone sites after Tehran shot down an American drone. Brent crude spiked 7% to $97.37. The 60-day ceasefire optimism from Friday is gone. One BofA strategist flagged that only 21 S&P 500 stocks hit new highs in May — close to the same narrow leadership reading you'd find in March 2000. Today's picks are about looking past that breadth concern: Caterpillar set to announce its 32nd consecutive raise in days, with analysts projecting a 7-8% boost; Cincinnati Financial, a 66-year King that just raised 8% in January; JPMorgan at 14 years with $50 billion in buyback authorization; and BlackRock managing $14 trillion with its dividend up 10% this year. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
One Filing Just Changed The SpaceX IPO Forever |
SpaceX filed its S-1. |
June 12 is now confirmed. $75 billion. Ticker SPCX. The largest IPO in history. |
You will not get shares. The 21-bank syndicate already locked them up. |
But the S-1 just exposed the one company Musk cannot operate without. |
It's publicly traded. It's still cheap. And in 22 days, the whole world will know its name. |
Dylan Jovine is giving it away — free — before the window closes. |
Get the ticker before June 12 reprices everything |
|
|
|
| |
|
Dividend Dispatch — Main Post
|
|
Dividend Aristocrats
The blue-chip legacy payers
|
| CATCaterpillar — 32nd consecutive raise expected this month, AI data center demand is the story |
This is the one I told you was coming. Caterpillar's board has raised the annual dividend in June for 31 straight years, and the 32nd announcement is expected within days. Sure Dividend's analysts are projecting a 7.3-8.6% bump from the current $1.51 quarterly to roughly $1.63 — taking the annualized rate from $6.04 to $6.48-$6.56. CAT has paid a quarterly dividend continuously since 1933.
What changed for CAT this year — and why this raise might surprise to the upside — is AI. The Power & Energy segment is now Caterpillar's largest revenue contributor, supplying large natural-gas generators for hyperscale AI data centers that increasingly bypass the public grid. Q1 2026 sales rose 22% to $17.4 billion. Adjusted EPS hit $5.54, up 30% year-over-year. The backlog reached a record $51 billion. Free cash flow ran $8.92 billion in 2025 against $2.7 billion in dividends paid — a 30% cash payout ratio. That's roomy.
On a $400+ stock, yield is around 1.5%. $10,000 = $150 a year today. Small. Management has guided to continued high-single-digit increases through 2030.
Risk to know: CAT is up 100% over the past 12 months on the AI thesis. The stock trades around 33.9x earnings, well above its 17x historical average since 2013. A breakdown in AI capex would deflate the multiple even if the dividend keeps growing. Caterpillar is also extremely cyclical — when industrial demand turns, sales fall hard. The dividend is safe at the 30% payout ratio. The stock price is the variable. |
| Yield: 1.5% |
$10K invested = $150/yr |
Paid: Quarterly |
|
|
| CINFCincinnati Financial — 66th consecutive raise, 24% payout ratio, an 8% bump |
Cincinnati Financial is an Ohio-based property and casualty insurer that has sold business, home, and auto insurance through independent agents for 76 years. It's also one of only seven U.S. companies with a longer dividend-growth streak than itself — when I say "one of seven," I mean there are exactly seven stocks in the entire market with a longer streak. 66 consecutive years of dividend increases.
In January 2026, the board raised the quarterly dividend 8% from $0.87 to $0.94 per share. Annual rate $3.76. The next $0.94 payment was just declared May 2 and pays July 15 to holders of record June 23. That's an honest growth-rate raise from a King — not the "preservation rate" 1% raise we saw at HRL last week or the strategic 1% raise at SPGI. Eight percent compounds.
Why the math works. The payout ratio is just 24% of earnings — very low for a 66-year King. Q1 2026 net income was $274 million ($1.75 per share). 2025 produced Cincinnati's best combined ratio (loss ratio + expense ratio) since 2015 — meaning underwriting profitability is at multi-year highs. Property/casualty insurers do well in inflationary environments because they can re-price policies upward as claims costs rise, and CINF has been doing exactly that. On the recent $171 stock the yield is 2.2%. $10,000 = $220 a year.
Risk to know: P&C insurance is exposed to catastrophe risk — hurricanes, wildfires, severe weather events. A bad cat-loss year shows up in earnings and reserves. The investment portfolio is sensitive to credit and equity markets. But the dividend has come through every catastrophe year and every recession in the past six decades. Sixty-six straight raises is the proof. |
| Yield: 2.2% |
$10K invested = $220/yr |
Paid: Quarterly |
|
|
|
|
|
Dividend Growth Stars
Fast-rising income builders
|
| JPMJPMorgan — raised 7% to $1.50 in March, $50 billion buyback running alongside |
JPMorgan Chase is the largest U.S. bank by assets — $4.4 trillion on the balance sheet — and one of the most reliable dividend growers in the financial sector. On March 17, the board raised the quarterly dividend 7.1% from $1.40 to $1.50 per share. Annual rate $6.00. The next $1.50 quarterly pays July 31, with the ex-dividend date July 6. That marks the 14th consecutive year of increases.
Look at the trajectory: $0.25 quarterly in 2012. $1.00 by 2022. $1.15 in mid-2023. $1.25 in early 2025. $1.50 now. The quarterly dividend has grown 6x over fourteen years, and 50% just in the past four. That's how Growth Star compounding works — a stock that yields 2% today produces real yield-on-cost numbers if you hold while the dividend marches.
The earnings backdrop supports the next raise. Q1 2026 net income was $16.49 billion, up 13% year-over-year, on $49.84 billion in revenue. EPS hit $5.94 against full-year 2025 EPS of $20.02 — meaning the $6.00 annual dividend uses about 30% of earnings. Plus the bank distributed $4.10 billion in dividends AND repurchased $8.10 billion of stock in Q1 alone, under a $50 billion buyback authorization. Yield on the $312 stock is 1.9%. $10,000 = $190 a year.
Risk to know: JPM trades close to all-time highs. Credit costs were $2.51 billion in Q1, down from $3.31 billion a year ago. The bank also guided 2026 full-year net interest income slightly lower from $104.5 billion to about $103 billion. The dividend safety isn't the question. The next raise rate is. |
| Yield: 1.9% |
$10K invested = $190/yr |
Paid: Quarterly |
|
|
| BLKBlackRock — managing $14 trillion, dividend up 10% this year, ex-dividend Friday |
BlackRock manages a staggering $14 trillion in assets — the largest asset manager in the world, bigger than the GDP of every country on Earth except the U.S. and China. The iShares ETF franchise is the dominant force in passive investing, and Aladdin (their risk-management platform) is the operating system for much of institutional finance. In January 2026, the board raised the quarterly dividend 10% from $5.21 to $5.73 per share. Annual rate $22.92. 17 consecutive years of increases. The ex-dividend date is this Friday, June 5, with the payment landing June 23.
The cash flow making the dividend grow: BlackRock pulled in nearly $700 billion in net inflows in 2025 and added another $130 billion in Q1 2026 — a record first quarter. The 10-year dividend CAGR is roughly 10%. Yield on the $1,076 stock is 2.13%. $10,000 = $213 a year. Payout ratio is 55.7% — reasonable for an asset manager that throws off mostly cash.
Risk to know: BLK trades at $1,076 — a premium-priced stock by any measure. The asset management business is fee-based, so a sharp bear market in stocks and bonds reduces AUM and therefore fees. The narrow May breadth concern BofA flagged works against BLK if equity volatility returns. The dividend isn't at risk. The growth rate would compress if AUM stops compounding. |
| Yield: 2.13% |
$10K invested = $213/yr |
Paid: Quarterly |
|
|
|
|
|
The Extra Yield
This week's calendars, screens & answers
|
| Don't miss these ex-dates: NVDA Thursday June 4 ($0.25, pays June 26 — first payment at the 25x raised rate). BLK Friday June 5 ($5.73, pays June 23). PEP Friday June 5 ($1.48, the new 54th-raise rate). WY Friday June 5 ($0.21 base timber). CINF Tuesday June 23 ($0.94, pays July 15). Six checks worth tracking this week and next. |
| I ran a screen this morning: Today's four picks sorted by recent dividend raise rate. BLK: 10% in January. CINF: 8% in January. JPM: 7.1% in March. CAT: ~7-8% projected for June. Same range. Different businesses. And what they all share is a payout ratio under 56% — meaning the raises came from real cash flow growth, not from squeezing the dividend coverage tighter. This is the cleanest test for a Growth Star pick: did the dividend grow because earnings grew, or because management got more aggressive with what's left over? With all four of these names, it's the first answer. |
| Someone asked me: "BofA flagged that only 21 S&P 500 stocks hit new highs in May — the same as March 2000. Should I be worried?" Honest answer — narrow leadership is a real concern, but it's not a sell signal for income investors who own the right names. The four names today have a combined payout ratio under 40%, raises in the 7-10% range, and businesses producing record cash flow. If we get a 2000-style top, the AI multiples come down hard. But the dividends from these four don't depend on the multiple — they depend on whether CAT keeps selling generators to data centers, whether CINF keeps writing profitable insurance, whether JPM and BLK keep growing their capital and AUM. The income survives. The price might not. Different question, different answer. |
|
|
| The Dispatch |
| Four names this morning. Caterpillar set to announce its 32nd raise this month — analysts projecting 7-8%. Cincinnati Financial at 66 consecutive years of raises and an 8% bump this January. JPMorgan with the $50 billion buyback running alongside the dividend. BlackRock managing $14 trillion and going ex this Friday. Tomorrow brings The Weird Yield plus two more High Yield picks — I've got something fresh for the unusual-income category. See you in the morning. |
| — Charlie |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dividend Dispatch — Footer
| 💰 |
| Dividend Dispatch |
| The High Yield · Aristocrats · Growth Stars · The Weird Yield · Safety |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
