All right -- my 2022 picks. Putting my money where my mouth is, and (again) swinging for the fences!
BEN
BTI
FB
VIAC
WFC
BONUS (and baseless) PREDICTION: We'll be getting another special dividend from BEN in 2022. The last one was in Q2 2018, and it was a whopping $3 per share. It is growing AUM and EPS fast (mainly through acquisition, I think), the payout ratio is nice and low (in the neighborhood of 30 percent). But the annual dividend raise was nonetheless really conservative. This is totally how they always seem to play it -- don't commit or create unrealistic expectations and financial constraints with the quarterly dividend, but reward shareholders periodically with extra divvy when appropriate. I haven't dug into their financials much yet, so maybe they're cash-starved from the Lexington buy, in which case I'm out of luck. But we'll see!
BEN
BTI
FB
VIAC
WFC
BONUS (and baseless) PREDICTION: We'll be getting another special dividend from BEN in 2022. The last one was in Q2 2018, and it was a whopping $3 per share. It is growing AUM and EPS fast (mainly through acquisition, I think), the payout ratio is nice and low (in the neighborhood of 30 percent). But the annual dividend raise was nonetheless really conservative. This is totally how they always seem to play it -- don't commit or create unrealistic expectations and financial constraints with the quarterly dividend, but reward shareholders periodically with extra divvy when appropriate. I haven't dug into their financials much yet, so maybe they're cash-starved from the Lexington buy, in which case I'm out of luck. But we'll see!