2-part question:
Part 1: Which companies are CURRENTLY considered "Royal Blue Chips"?
"Royal Blue Chip" company criteria is defined in "The Dividend
Connection" by Geraldine & Gregory Weiss (see background explanation
below)
Part 2: Going forward, where can I find the answer to Part 1 for free?

Background:
"Royal Blue Chip" companies/stocks are defined in the book, "The
Dividend Connection" by Geraldine Weiss & Gregory Weiss. "The Dividend
Connection" contains a list of Royal Blue Chip companies, but the book
was published in 1995 so I assume that list is out of date and I would
like an equivalent,
up-to-date list.  According to "The Dividend Connection" (pages 8-9 &
18-19), Royal Blue Chip companies have the following characteristics:
1. Company has increased cash dividend in at least 11 of the past 12
years at compound annual rates in excess of 10%.
2. Stock carries Standard & Poor's quality rank of A+
3. Company has at least 5,000,000 shares outstanding
4. At least 80 institutions hold the stock
5. There have been at least 25 years of uninterrupted dividends
6. Corporate earnings should have improved in at least 7 out of the past 12 years
7. Company has little or no debt
8. Company has little or no pension liability
9. Company has no preferred stock

IQ Trends is a newsletter published by Geraldine Weiss (iqtrends.com),
and a list of "Royal Blue Chips" may be available in it, I'm not sure.

Thank you very much for your time and effort.

---

Request for Question Clarification by vercingatorix-ga on 19 May 2004 14:20 PDT

I can prepare a list of such companies. I have access to databases
containing this information. But the information you require will take
some time to assemble, and I would need considerably more than $25 to
assemble it. If you're interested in the data, raise the price of the
question, and I'll compile it for you.

If you're looking for a list of the best large-cap stocks for free, I
can probably find some sources for that. But if you want a list of
"Royal Blue Chips" calculated according to the formula you provide, I
doubt one is available for free.

However ...

The kind of stocks that would qualify as royalty are unlikely to
change very often. You probably won't need to revisit them as often as
monthly.

V

"Blue chip" stock is a very common term used to denote the
publically-traded shares of well-known companies that "long record of
profit growth and dividend payment and a reputation for quality
management, products, and services."

Ref:://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&oi=defmore&q=define:blue+chip

There are, however, many ways of measuring which shares deserve such a
label. Most of these are quantitative - they involve calculations of
their financial results over periods of time - but the selection of
calculations, standards and periods varies depending on your specific
criteria.

Your interest appears to be in the standards set by Geraldine &
Gregory Weiss in defining "royal blue chip" stocks in their 1995 book.
As part of iqtrends.com newsletter they sell, they DO have an
up-to-date list of blue chip stocks they recommend. However, they now
call these "select blue chips" and the criteria have changed slightly.

I've copied the criteria below from a sample newsletter on their website.
Ref: http://www.iqtrends.com/pdf/sample.pdf

<<<
CRITERIA FOR SELECT BLUE CHIPS

When does a common stock become a ?Select Blue Chip?? According to our
method a stock will deserve such a designation after it has met at
least 5 of the 6 following qualifications and may remain with 4
criteria:
1. Dividend increases five times in the last twelve years
2. S&P Quality ranking in the "A" category
3. At least 5,000,000 shares outstanding
4. At least 80 institutional investors
5. At least 25 years of uninterrupted dividends
6. Earnings improved in at least seven of the last 12 years
In the statistical columns, ?Blue Chip Criteria? identifies the number
of the above qualifications that each stock fulfills. A ?G? denotes a
remarkable 10% annual dividend growth over the past 12 years. The I.Q.
Trends register of Select Blue Chips is an elite representation of the
highest quality and most prosperous corporations in the country.
>>>

You can see their entire list in the sample newsletter (see above
link). This dates to mid-december 2003. They also select 13 of the
best of these stocks that they track over the year.

It might be difficult to get a more up-to-date list than december 2003
without subscribing to the newsletter, but you could email
sample@iqtrends.com and try requesting one.

Hope this helps.

Thanks very much hobbes26-ga. I had tried to look at that sample
IQTrends newsletter (prior to posting my question on Google), but I
kept getting an "internal error" from Adobe Acrobat and was never able
to view the newsletter. The same thing happened when I tried to use
the link you provided in your comment. I was hoping to find someone
through Google Answers who had a subscription to the IQTrends
newsletter that would share the information with me for $25.00. I
think the price of the subscription would be greater than the interest
from any investments I might make, so I hesitate to get a subscription
myself.
Thanks again for you help, I really appreciate it.

Try right clicking on the link and saving the pdf document to your
computer and then opening it. If you are still getting an error with
Adobe Acrobat, uninstall it and install the latest version. I can't
really post the entire list here (too long) and there's no way to send
it to you.