Employ a money manager you can trust to help you build a retirement portfolio. The costs should not exceed 1.25 percent annually. Failing that option, consider Warren Buffett’s advice for the trustees who will manage his wife’s account after he dies: “I want to be sure she gets a decent result. She doesn’t need to get a sensational result. … I’ve told the trustee to put 90 percent of it in an S&P 500 index fund and 10 percent in short-term governments.”
I recommend the following stocks you can keep for the rest of your life.
AT&T (T-$40.60), yielding 4.7 percent, has increased its dividend for 32 consecutive years. This is a modest growth and income stock. I have advised many readers to use T as a proxy for a bond. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ-$116) is an impressive health products company that has increased its dividend by more than 8.5 percent annually for 35 consecutive years. Procter & Gamble (PG-$82) has 58 years of consecutive dividend increases, averaging over 7.3 percent. Alphabet (GOOG-$693) doesn’t pay dividends yet, but its revenue and earnings potential are nonpareil. Visa (V-$77) needs no introduction, either; almost everyone has a Visa. In the past 10 years, Visa has tripled revenues and earnings and share price. It could happen again! American Water (AWK-$74) is the largest investor-owned water utility in the U.S., yielding 1.8 percent. Revenue, earnings and dividend growth are impressive, and future acquisitions should propel AWK to a record level each year. Then add General Electric (GE-$30), Pfizer (PFE-$34), Air Products (APD-$143), Sysco (SYY-$50) and Cisco Systems (CSCO-$28).
I urge you to find a money manager who can complement and complete this portfolio with other solid dividend growth issues.
Malcolm Berko addresses questions about stocks. Reach him at P.O. Box 8303, Largo, FL 33775 or mjberko@yahoo.com