Perseverance doesn’t feel noble when you’re living it out.
Sometimes it feels like basic survival: just trying to keep your head above water.
I got to learn that firsthand after my business partner decided to build a hotel far outside his circle of competence. When he started losing money on that venture, he began to use our jointly owned properties like his personal ATM machine.
My regular readers probably remember how the story ended, how his desperate efforts weren’t enough to keep him from losing everything. And how I was left literally paying for his mistakes.
Then came the crisis of 2008… and I really lost everything.
Like so many others, I had to start over. I took a salaried job to catch my footing. Yet even that only lasted a year before I was let go for writing financial articles on Seeking Alpha – after I made sure to get permission to do so, mind you.
It was humbling. But the education was more valuable than I could have ever guessed at the time.
Each stumble turned out to be preparation for the next opportunity that came my way. It all sharpened my focus on what truly lasts: integrity, patience, and discipline through both the best and worst of times.
I’ve never forgotten that hard-earned wisdom, which has served me well in both my personal and professional lives. It’s the premise that guides everything we do here at Wide Moat Research.
And it’s why I’m able to stand here today recommending another wide-moat stock that’s trading at a discount.
The Long Run and the Dividend Mindset
We talk a lot about companies with “wide moats” here: firms that can endure competition and adversity year after year.
In fact, I wrote about it yesterday in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day (a holiday that honors someone who probably didn’t believe in luck at all, contrary to today’s associations).
As I said, wide-moat companies “amass their own pots of gold, all while constructing solid safety nets around them.” They don’t get swayed by either bad or good “luck,” maintaining high-quality standards no matter what.
In other words, they have a plan, and they persevere in achieving it.
It’s endurance, in other words.
The market’s short‑term noise tempts us to act, often by prematurely selling quality stocks. But real, lasting wealth is built by sitting still while good businesses quietly earn and reinvest on our behalf.
And when it comes to dividend-paying businesses specifically, lasting wealth is built by letting compounding do what nothing else can.
By that, I mean reinvesting those dividends each and every time to buy up more shares… which then produce more dividends than you got before… which are then used to buy up more shares still.
It might not seem like it’s working very well in the first few years you commit to compounding. But boy, can it pay off after a decade or two.
That’s why every dividend check should be a reminder that success and excitement rarely go hand in hand. Investment success drips in quarter by quarter while you’re persevering with the rest of your life.
Another Dividend King on Sale
Last week, I highlighted Automatic Data Processing (ADP), one of the world’s largest providers of payroll and human capital management services. The company recently achieved Dividend King status after achieving 50 annual dividend increases in a row.
Yet shares have become deeply discounted, trading at 19.6 times as opposed to their normal multiple of 27.1 times, as shown below.
Source: FAST Graphs
It’s not every day I get to recommend a Dividend King, since they don’t usually go on sale. Plus, there are just 56 of them available on the U.S. stock market… for now.
Genuine Parts (GPC) may soon cut its dividend, but I’ll save that for another article.
Despite that rarity, just one week after ADP, I’m here to tell you about another Dividend King worth your consideration. This one happens to be a real estate investment trust, or REIT, named Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT).
Source: Federal Realty
Federal Realty owns a portfolio of 103 open-air shopping-center properties and 29 million square feet of commercial space. These assets are located in affluent markets such as Miami, Florida; Washington, D.C.; New York; Boston, Massachusetts;
Phoenix, Arizona; Silicon Valley; and Southern California.
As such, one of its key competitive advantages is best-in-class demographics, where it operates in supply-constrained, high-income markets. These barriers to entry protect its property values and generate steady rent growth – with projected property operating income (“POI”) growth at 3% to 3.5% in 2026.
Another key differentiator for Federal Realty is its balance sheet. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, its annualized adjusted net debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (“EBITDA”) and fixed-charge coverage was 3.9 times. This was while the company had about $1.3 billion of total liquidity, not to mention investment-grade ratings from Moody’s (Baa1) and S&P (BBB+).
This Dividend King also generated funds from operations (“FFO”) per share of $1.84, representing 6.4% growth over the fourth quarter of 2024. And it gave guidance for core FFO per share of $7.42 to $7.52, about 5.8% growth compared with 2025.
The stock is now trading at $104.49 with a price to adjusted FFO (P/AFFO) multiple of 19.1 times compared with its normal 26.4 times. Its 4.3% dividend yield is well-covered by an 80% payout ratio. And analysts expect 5% growth in 2027 and 6% in 2028.
Given Federal Realty’s margin of safety and steady growth forecast, I’m targeting shares to return around 20% over the next 12 months.
Source: FAST Graphs
Some Final Thoughts
Finally, I want to thank you for reading my article today. And to those of you who have followed me the whole way through, thank you for reading other analyses I’ve published over the years for Wide Moat Research, Seeking Alpha, Forbes, Motley Fool, and The Street.
Looking back, it’s impossible to overlook how I never would have become a Wall Street writer to begin with without my back-to-back rough seasons. That era was often excruciating as I tried to provide for my five children, the littlest one who was still in diapers at the time.
Yet perseverance got me through. And today, I use my entire story – tragedies and triumphs alike – to show how this strategy can work for you as well.
As legendary investor Benjamin Graham once said, “Adversity is bitter, but its uses may be sweet. Our loss was great, but in the end, we could count great compensations.”
So, here’s to great compensations! No matter what comes our way.
Regards,
Brad Thomas
Editor, Wide Moat Daily
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