If you want to teach your children the power of making their money work for them (instead of the other way around), what better way to do so than by introducing them to a few solid, big-name dividend stocks?
After all, billionaire investor Warren Buffett bought his first stock at 11 years old, and he’s built his fortune riding the success of some of most famous dividend stocks in history. Of course, Buffett’s father was also a stockbroker at the time, but it still highlights what can be accomplished when we start early teaching our kids the potential held in the greatest wealth-building medium in existence.
To get you started, here are three such dividend stocks both you and your kids can love.
More than just the House of Mouse
First up, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) has raised its dividend seven times over the past decade, and it now offers a reasonable 1.2% yield. In large part, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) achieved that growth by successfully leveraging its incredible range of character properties into films, video games, theme parks, and merchandising, thereby building itself into arguably the most comprehensive entertainment company the market has to offer.
Of course, those properties include the more traditional princesses and cartoon characters but have also recently been bolstered by the dozens of characters resulting from its 2006 acquisition of Pixar, as well as thousands upon thousands of names and storylines The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) can now develop thanks to both its 2009 acquisition of comics powerhouse Marvel Entertainment and its 2012 purchase of Star Wars and Indiana Jones creator Lucasfilm.
Needless to say, then, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) has more than enough material to keep consumers entertained for a long, long time.
Of course, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) also owns its flagship Disney Channel along with ABC Family and SOAPnet, and it boasts significant stakes in ESPN and A&E Networks. In fact, more than three-quarters of Disney’s total revenue came from its strong media-networks and theme-parks divisions last year.
What’s more, thanks to its annual theme-park admission-price increases earlier this month amid record attendance, along with the fact The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) repurchased more than 38 million of its own shares for $20 billion during the first half of this fiscal year, there’s no reason this dividend stock shouldn’t be able to continue outperforming for the foreseeable future.
The Cupertino effect
Next, what kid wouldn’t enjoy the thought owning a piece of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), which quite possibly serves as the enabler of their thousands of monthly text messages, given the 37.4 million iPhones the company sold last quarter alone?
That’s also not to mention that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) created a new revolutionary market with the advent of the iPad — of which it sold 19.5 million units last quarter — or that it rakes in additional billions from digital-goods sales from its iTunes platform.
