Dividend Growth Stocks: * JNJ vs. JNJ

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

* JNJ vs. JNJ

In yesterday's Stock Analysis on JNJ, I stated that for some time now, I have been looking for an entry point to purchase JNJ. The overall rating of two Stars has not changed since my first review on 11-21-2007. However, many of the metrics I look at have changed and here's a break-down the differences between now and then:

Price:
11-21-2007: $67.75
02-11-2008: $62.03 (Good!)

P/E:
11-21-2007: 19
02-11-2008: 17.3 (Good!)

Yield:
11-21-2007: 2.48%
02-11-2008: 2.64% (Good!)

Avg. P/E Price:
11-21-2007: Unfavorable
02-11-2008: Favaorable (Good!)

Years to MMA:
11-21-2007: 14
02-11-2008: 11 (still one more than I prefer as a maximum, by 1 year)

NPV MMA Diff:
11-21-2007: $471
02-11-2008: $2,517 (More than 5 times the November 21st amount)

Since new dividend data was available, I used my model D4L-PreScreen.xls to update some of the above analysis. I input the following data:

Symbol: JNJ
Year: 2007
Current Yield: 2.64%
Calc. Div. Growth: 11.0%
MMA Yield: 4.86%
Max Div. Growth: 20.0%
Override Div. Gro: 0.0%

Dividends:
2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997
1.62 1.46 1.28 1.10 0.93 0.80 0.70 0.62 0.55 0.49 0.43

The calculated NPV MMA Diff only changed slightly. I determined that it would take a dividend growth rate of 11.7% to get the Years to MMA down to 10 (the maximum I like to see). Since I use a conservative method of estimating the dividend growth rate, a 11.7% is not unrealistic given the 11-year average is 14.0%. Using the Override Div. Gro. field I entered 14.0% to see what that did to the NPV MMA Diff - it increased to $8,132. I entered 5,000 in cell C25 then pressed the button in D12 to backsolved for the growth rate needed to give me a NPV MMA Diff of $5,000. It was 12.6% which is not unreasonable.

My conclusion: Buy. Like General Electric Company (GE), JNJ is one of those boring predictable companies that finds its way into most every dividend investor's portfolio. JNJ is a well-managed, well-run company and has been that way for decades. I like owning companies like JNJ and GE because it offsets some of my more riskier investments, but I will not buy in at just any price. I purchased a small block of JNJ and will continue to watch it for opportunities to add to my position.

Full Disclosure: At the time of this writing, I proudly own shares of JNJ.

Tomorrow: What did I sell to buy JNJ and why?

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