Waste Management: Great Company, Trashy Valuation

Waste Management (WM) is a great defensive business to buttress your portfolio in troubling times.  I think the list of people that would rather forego trash pickup and instead let their trash pile up even in the worst of recessions would be few and few between.  The steady and defensive nature of the business allows investors to sleep well at night.

Fortunately for me, I purchase shares of Waste Management back in 2011.  Unfortunately, and admittedly short-sighted, I sold shares in 2013.  I was sitting on ~28% price appreciation in 20 months and dividend growth has disappointed declining from 7.9% to 4.4% to just 2.8%.  In hindsight, I should have been adding shares, but instead I closed the position since it was a negligible part of my portfolio.

I had completely forgotten about Waste Management and happened to come across the business recently.  So I wanted to take a deeper look at this defensive name to see how the business is going and whether the valuation makes sense.

Continue reading the article on Seeking Alpha.