Headed into this week, initial jobless claims had been on the rise for three weeks in a row.  This streak has come to an end as claims fell to 210K.  Expectations were calling for this week to be unchanged from last week’s revised 220K.  This decline has brought claims back to the lower end of the past year’s range and the lowest since September 12th.  The record streaks at or below 300K and 250K also continue this week, growing to 240 and 105 consecutive weeks, respectively.

Although the weekly data saw a fairly large decrease with its 10K drop, the four-week moving average actually rose for its second week in a row.  The moving average, which helps to smooth out the week to week fluctuations, now sits at 213.75K.  While it did rise, the degree of the increase was once again small. The moving average is up just 1K from last week, and that is actually one of the larger moves in recent weeks as the prior three weeks only saw movements of 0.25K.

Given this, the moving average has remained in its tight range recently. Over the past three months, there has been only one week (August 30th when the average was 216.75K) when the average was not in the range of 212K and 215K. That sort of tight range over the past quarter is something that has not been observed in the past couple of years. In fact, the spread of just 4.75K between the past 3 months’ high and low is the joint smallest range since late August 2017. Furthermore, that is the second tightest range of the current cycle with the only smaller 3-month range being the week prior to the aforementioned week in August 2017 when the range was just 4K. In other words, claims are still at healthy levels but have also not picked a direction of improvement or worsening.

Claims in non-seasonally adjusted terms also rose by just 1K this week to 173K.  While that is a small week-over-week change, relative to last year claims dropped by over 20K.  This week’s NSA data was also well below the average for the current week of the year since 2000 of 300.56K.  Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Institutional to access our interactive economic indicators monitor and much more.

The Dividend Aristocrats (ETF: NOBL) is an index made up of 57 S&P 500 stocks that have long histories of increasing their dividend payments to shareholders. In fact, each of these companies has raised their dividend for 25 consecutive years or more; some have even been growing their dividends twice as long. After a sharp rally at the end of August through mid-September which brought the index up to all-time highs, the group fell back below its prior highs at the start of the month.  Having fallen further since then, NOBL now sits at the bottom of its long term uptrend.

Below is a list of the 20 Dividend Aristocrat members with the highest yields.  A large portion of the top 20 are Health Care and Consumer Staples stocks (each sector having 5 of the 20) with Industrials also having a sizable contribution (4 stocks) to the highest yielders.  Currently, there are three stocks that yield over 5% including Exxon Mobil (XOM), AT&T (T), and AbbVie (ABBV).  AbbVie (ABBV) — which was spun off from Abbott Labs in 2013 — tops this list with a yield of 5.8%.  Even though the stock has been in a downtrend over the past year, it has still increased its dividend. Multiple other stocks in this group including Franklin Resources (BEN), 3M (MMM), and Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) are also in downtrends.  Meanwhile, others such as Coca-Cola (KO) are in uptrends. We created a custom portfolio of all the dividend aristocrats for members so that they can keep tabs on the trends of these stocks. Some other notable high yielders include People’s United Financial (PBCT) and Leggett & Platt (LEG). These two have some of the highest yields in spite of also having the third smallest and smallest market caps, respectively, of all 57 dividend aristocrats. JNJ, on the other hand, has the largest market cap of all aristocrats.

While ABBV (formerly Abbott Labs) has the highest yield of the top 20, it does not have the longest track record of growing its dividend even though it has been doing so for nearly 50 years.  Genuine Parts (GPC) actually holds that accolade having raised its dividend for 63 consecutive years. Of the other top 20, 3M (MMM) and Emerson Electric (EMR) are the only other stocks to have done so for 60 years or more.  A few others like Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Federal Realty (FRT), and Coca-Cola (KO) have grown their dividends for better than a half-century.  Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Institutional to access our custom portfolios, Trend Analyzer, Chart Scanner tool, and more.