8 S&P 500 Dividend Stocks With Encouraging Receivable Trends

Do you like to be able to rely on a stock’s dividend income? If so, one idea is to consider a stock’s sales trends, since sales ultimately finance the stock’s dividend. To illustrate, we ran a screen.

We began by screening the S&P 500 for stocks paying dividend yields above 2% and sustainable payout ratios below 50%.

We then screened for those stocks with strong sales trends, comparing growth in revenue to growth in accounts receivable. Since accounts receivable is the portion of revenue not yet received, and there is no guarantee the money will ever be received, the smaller the portion of revenue made up of receivables the healthier the company’s revenue.

We screened for stocks seeing faster growth in revenue than accounts receivable year-over-year, as well as accounts receivable comprising a smaller portion of current assets over the same time period.

Do you think these stocks pay reliable dividends? Use this list as a starting point for your own analysis. List Average 1-Year Return: 21%. Diversification score: 64%.

Interactive Chart: Use the Compar-O-Matic to compare analyst ratings for the stocks mentioned below:

1. AGL Resources Inc. (GAS, Earnings, Analysts, Financials): Engages in natural gas distribution business in the United States. Market cap at $4.86B, most recent closing price at $41.34. Current yield at 4.5%. Relative volume ratio at 1.02. Revenue grew by 82.93% during the most recent quarter ($686M vs. $375M y/y). Accounts receivable grew by -15.01% during the same time period ($657M vs. $773M y/y). Receivables, as a percentage of current assets, decreased from 48.22% to 34.95% during the most recent quarter (comparing 3 months ending 2012-06-30 to 3 months ending 2011-06-30).

2. Sysco Corp. (SYY, Earnings, Analysts, Financials): Distributes food and related products primarily to the foodservice or food-away-from-home industry in North America and Europe. Market cap at $18.11B, most recent closing price at $30.88. Current yield at 3.46%. Relative volume ratio at 1.38. Revenue grew by 5.94% during the most recent quarter ($11,045.38M vs. $10,425.7M y/y). Accounts receivable grew by 2.36% during the same time period ($2,966.62M vs. $2,898.28M y/y). Receivables, as a percentage of current assets, decreased from 50.56% to 48.75% during the most recent quarter (comparing 13 weeks ending 2012-06-30 to 13 weeks ending 2011-07-02).

3. E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DD, Earnings, Analysts, Financials): Market cap at $46.98B, most recent closing price at $50.50. Current yield at 3.38%. Relative volume ratio at 1.04. Revenue grew by 7.53% during the most recent quarter ($11,283M vs. $10,493M y/y). Accounts receivable grew by 1.15% during the same time period ($9,476M vs. $9,368M y/y). Receivables, as a percentage of current assets, decreased from 50.09% to 47.08% during the most recent quarter (comparing 3 months ending 2012-06-30 to 3 months ending 2011-06-30).

4. Target Corp. (TGT, Earnings, Analysts, Financials): Operates general merchandise stores in the United States. Market cap at $41.8B, most recent closing price at $63.83. Current yield at 2.26%. Relative volume ratio at 1.48. Revenue grew by 3.32% during the most recent quarter ($16,779M vs. $16,240M y/y). Accounts receivable grew by -3.18% during the same time period ($5,540M vs. $5,722M y/y). Receivables, as a percentage of current assets, decreased from 35.63% to 33.75% during the most recent quarter (comparing 13 weeks ending 2012-07-28 to 13 weeks ending 2011-07-30).

5. Rockwell Collins Inc. (COL, Earnings, Analysts, Financials): Engages in the design, production, and support of communications and aviation electronics for commercial and military customers worldwide. Market cap at $7.49B, most recent closing price at $52.69. Current yield at 2.22%. Relative volume ratio at 1.87. Revenue grew by 1.26% during the most recent quarter ($1,205M vs. $1,190M y/y). Accounts receivable grew by -6.03% during the same time period ($967M vs. $1,029M y/y). Receivables, as a percentage of current assets, decreased from 37.36% to 35.13% during the most recent quarter (comparing 13 weeks ending 2012-06-30 to 13 weeks ending 2011-06-30).

6. Accenture plc (ACN, Earnings, Analysts, Financials): Operates as a management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company. Market cap at $44.58B, most recent closing price at $64.35. Current yield at 2.06%. Relative volume ratio at 1.69. Revenue grew by 6.06% during the most recent quarter ($7,640.79M vs. $7,204.35M y/y). Accounts receivable grew by -0.36% during the same time period ($4,679.44M vs. $4,696.16M y/y). Receivables, as a percentage of current assets, decreased from 42.13% to 40.84% during the most recent quarter (comparing 3 months ending 2012-05-31 to 3 months ending 2011-05-31).

7. Sunoco, Inc. (SUN, Earnings, Analysts, Financials): Through its subsidiaries, refines and markets petroleum products, and manufactures chemicals in the United states. Market cap at $4.88B, most recent closing price at $46.57. Current yield at 1.72%. Relative volume ratio at 2.41. Revenue grew by 8.05% during the most recent quarter ($12,229M vs. $11,318M y/y). Accounts receivable grew by -16.03% during the same time period ($2,556M vs. $3,044M y/y). Receivables, as a percentage of current assets, decreased from 53.13% to 50.12% during the most recent quarter (comparing 3 months ending 2012-06-30 to 3 months ending 2011-06-30).

8. Monsanto Co. (MON, Earnings, Analysts, Financials): Provides agricultural products for farmers in the United States and internationally. Market cap at $47.69B, most recent closing price at $89.49. Current yield at 1.64%. Relative volume ratio at 1.1. Revenue grew by 16.93% during the most recent quarter ($4,219M vs. $3,608M y/y). Accounts receivable grew by 2.3% during the same time period ($4,401M vs. $4,302M y/y). Receivables, as a percentage of current assets, decreased from 48.58% to 44.99% during the most recent quarter (comparing 3 months ending 2012-05-31 to 3 months ending 2011-05-31).

Written by Rebecca Lipman. https://www.kapitall.com/framework/#?tool=Accounting data sourced from Google Finance, all other data sourced from Finviz.

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