3 Dividend Growth Stocks That Have Doubled Their Payouts in 5 Years

Eli Lilly, Tractor Supply and American Express have more than doubled their dividends in five years, with current payout ratios of 22%, about 50% and about 20%, respectively. Tractor Supply’s dividend rose 131% on a split-adjusted basis; its shares are down 33% in 2026, while American Express shares are down 16%, despite raising full-year guidance to 10% top-line growth. The article presents the stocks as potential long-term dividend-growth investments, while noting business and share-price headwinds.

Analysis

Dividend growth is a lagging signal, not evidence that the next increase is secure. The key underwriting test is whether distributable cash flow can keep growing through a weaker demand or pricing cycle; low earnings-based payout ratios can look deceptively comfortable when earnings are near a peak, and they say little about cash conversion or competing investment needs.

Over the next 1–3 months, TSCO is the most exposed to a consumer-demand and operating-leverage reset: a dividend can remain covered while weaker comparable sales and cost absorption constrain growth and the multiple. AXP has a different sensitivity—affluent spending may cushion volumes, but credit losses and funding costs can offset that resilience. LLY’s dividend is immaterial to the equity thesis; the second-order risk is that market expectations outrun realized GLP-1 access, supply, net pricing, or durability of demand. Those factors matter more than payout capacity.

Over 6–18 months, the relative outcome hinges on TSCO’s ability to stabilize store-level demand, AXP’s credit quality through the cycle, and LLY’s conversion of demand into sustainable cash generation. The article’s dividend and valuation framing is not enough to establish cheapness or future payout growth. Verify comparable-sales and margin trends, AXP delinquencies/provisions and guidance, and LLY supply, coverage, net pricing, and cash conversion before sizing. No price targets are supportable from the supplied information.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Do not buy the three names as a dividend-growth basket on payout ratios alone. Treat dividend growth as a secondary screen; require confirmation from free-cash-flow coverage and management’s capital-allocation priorities.
• TSCO: keep on a watchlist rather than averaging down solely on the selloff. Reassess after the next results; stabilization in comparable sales and gross margin would improve the entry case. Further deterioration in either, or a dividend increase funded without matching cash-flow growth, falsifies the recovery thesis.
• AXP versus TSCO: consider a modest relative-value long AXP / short TSCO only if upcoming data confirm resilient AXP spending without material credit deterioration while TSCO comps remain weak. Exit or avoid the pair if AXP delinquencies/provisions accelerate or TSCO sales and margins inflect positively.
• LLY: underwrite as a growth/pharma position, not an income trade; avoid adding based on dividend growth alone. Track realized access, supply, net pricing, and cash conversion over the next few quarters. Deteriorating coverage or demand would challenge the thesis even if the dividend remains easily covered.