If you are like me, you probably find it tough to dig through the mountains of information floating out there on the interweb. With so many opinions of what you should buy, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Well, fear not, I have done a bit of the heavy lifting to (hopefully) find some of the best U.S. dividend stocks for the October!

This is my list of October U.S. Dividend Kings.

About my list

There are over 5000 stocks on the U.S. exchanges and only 6 made my October list! As you can see by the list below, it’s not easy being a U.S. Dividend King and these stocks all had to pass a series of test to make it on the list.

The Criteria

1. The company must have 25 or more years of uninterrupted dividend growth.
2. The company must have a Graham number greater than its current share price.
3. Its payout ratio must be under 70%
4. Its P/E ratio must be under 15
5. The company must have a price to book ratio under 2

OCTOBER US DIVIDEND KINGS

	Ticker	Streak	Yield	Price	Graham Value	P/E	EPS	Dividend	Payout %	P/Book	Div/Gr 10Yr
1	CTBI	36	3.45	37.11	$40.87	14.06	2.64	1.28	48.48	1.32	3.3
2	ORI	35	4.26	17.62	$24.15	11.52	1.53	0.75	49.02	1.04	3.8
3	AFL	33	2.28	71.87	$86.63	11.82	6.08	1.64	26.97	1.31	13.6
4	EFSI	29	3.41	23.45	$33.98	10.61	2.21	0.80	36.20	1.01	4.8
5	THFF	28	2.46	40.68	$47.60	13.70	2.97	1.00	33.67	1.20	2.1
6	CPKF	25	2.54	19.68	$26.91	12.54	1.57	0.50	31.85	0.96	8.2

These are the companies that made it onto the list.

Ticker	Company Name	Industry
CTBI	Community Trust Banc.	Banking
ORI	Old Republic International	Insurance
AFL	AFLAC Inc.	Insurance
EFSI	Eagle Financial Services	Banking
THFF	First Financial Corp.	Banking
CPKF	Chesapeake Financial Shares	Banking

Changes to the list

The only move to this month’s list was the expulsion of BEN 🙁 I own this company so it pains me to do it, but I must be true to the metrics in place. The reason BEN fell off the list is because it is trading $0.18 above the Benjamin Graham number for intrinsic value. Ben will make into my honorable mentions list below.

Honorable mentions

	Ticker	Streak	Yield	Price	Graham Value	P/E	EPS	Dividend	Payout %	P/Book	Div/Gr 10Yr
7	SRCE	28	2.02	35.69	$35.33	16.52	2.16	0.72	33.33	1.39	5.2
8	UVV	45	3.64	58.22	$61.75	17.86	3.26	2.12	65.03	1.12	2.2
9	ADM	41	2.85	42.17	$40.77	17.07	2.47	1.20	48.58	1.41	12.7
10	BEN	36	2.02	35.57	$35.20	13.13	2.71	0.72	26.57	1.75	16.2

Ticker	Company Name	Industry	REASON
SRCE	1st Source Corp.	Banking	P/E above 15
UVV	Universal Corp.	Tobacco	P/E above 15
ADM	Archer Daniels Midland	Agriculture	P/E above 15
BEN	Franklin Resources	Financial Services	Graham Number below market price

Final Thoughts

The best way to use my U.S. Dividend Kings list is as a starting point for your own research. Don’t feel confined to my methods. Look up the values that mean the most to you. Like any screening method , the purpose of my list is to help you dig through the stock market to find some of the best U.S. dividend stocks, which can then be further researched by you.

Disclosure. I’m long BEN and ORI and may or may not purchase shares in any of the stocks in this post.

Resources from: Morningstar, Google Finance, Zacks,

The U.S. Dividend Champions are maintained by Dave Fish of Moneypaper’s DirectInvesting.com.