S&P's Dividend Aristocrats

Standard and Poors published their annual list of the publicly traded companies that have increased their dividends every year for at least 25 years. In my younger days, I focused a lot on dividend payers and enjoyed seeing that quarterly payment being rolled over into additional shares. So are there any on this list that I would avoid? Well on a personal level, I would avoid Bank of America and SLM Corporation. Thomas K. Brown from bankstocks.com is one of the hedge managers I trust regarding the financial industry. When he says something about a specific company, it pays to listen to his opinion.

Abbott Labs (ABT)
Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM)
Automatic Data Processing (ADP)
Avery Dennison (AVY)
Bank of America (BAC)
BB&T Corporation (BBT)
Bard (C.R.) Inc. (BCR)
Becton, Dickinson (BDX)
Anheuser-Busch (BUD)
Chubb (CB)
Compass Bancshares (CBSS)
Cincinnati Financial (CINF)
Clorox (CLX)
Comerica (CMA)
Century Telephone (CTL)
Dover (DOV)
Consolidated Edison (ED)
Emerson Electric (EMR)
Family Dollar Stores (FDO)
First Horizon National (FHN)
Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB)
Gannett (GCI)
General Electric (GE)
Grainger (W.W.) Inc. (GWW)
Johnson Controls (JCI)
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
KeyCorp (KEY)
Kimberly-Clark (KMB)
Coca Cola (KO)
Leggett & Platt (LEG)
Lilly (Eli) & Co. (LLY)
Lowe's (LOW)
McDonald's (MCD)
McGraw-Hill (MHP)
3M Company (MMM)
Altria (MO)
M&T Bank (MTB)
Nucor (NUE)
PepsiCo (PEP)
Pfizer (PFE)
Procter & Gamble (PG)
Progressive (PGR)
PPG Industries (PPG)
Regions Financial (RF)
Rohm & Haas (ROH)
Sherwin-Williams (SHW)
Sigma-Aldrich (SIAL)
SLM Corporation (SLM)
Synovus Financial (SNV)
Questar (STR)
State Street (STT)
Supervalu (SVU)
Stanley Works (SWK)
Target (TGT)
U.S. Bancorp (USB)
V.F. Corp. (VFC)
Walgreen (WAG)
Wal-Mart (WMT)
Wrigley (WWY)