Why S&P Global fits my dividend growth portfolio in an AI world

Trust is something investors depend on more than we probably admit.

We trust the numbers we use to value a business. We trust the benchmarks we compare ourselves against. We trust credit ratings, market data, company financials, risk models, and the endless flow of information that helps us decide what something is worth.

AI is going to make analysis easier to create.

More summaries. More models. More dashboards. More recommendations. More confident-sounding answers.

But when everyone can produce a polished answer, the real edge is knowing which answers are built on trusted data.

That is what keeps bringing me back to S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI).

Most investors know the S&P 500. Fewer think about the company behind it. But S&P Global is much more than an index brand. It sits behind some of the most important parts of global finance: credit ratings, market benchmarks, index data, company intelligence, commodity pricing, and risk tools.

The more I study S&P Global, the more I see a company that sits underneath the decisions others get paid to make.

Investors need benchmarks. Companies need ratings. Institutions need data. Markets need pricing. And increasingly, AI will need trusted inputs before it can produce useful answers.

S&P Global is not flashy. It is not the highest-yielding dividend stock I could buy. It is not the cheapest stock on the market.

But it sits in the plumbing of global finance. And the more I think about where AI is heading, the more I think that plumbing matters.

I still want meaningful exposure to the companies pushing AI, data, automation, and digital infrastructure forward. That has not changed. But I also want more businesses that can compound quietly, generate durable cash flow, and grow their dividends over long periods of time.

S&P Global fits that mix.

Bad data plus a smart model is still bad analysis.

That is the core of the S&P Global thesis for me, and it is why I am adding it to the Wealthy Owl Dividend Growth Portfolio.

What S&P Global actually does

The S&P 500 is the obvious starting point.

It is one of the most followed benchmarks in the world. It is the measuring stick investors use to judge performance, compare portfolios, and understand what is happening in the market.

But S&P Global is much bigger than one index.

The company touches a lot of the financial system. When a company raises debt, credit ratings matter. When an investor compares performance, benchmarks matter. When institutions analyze companies, markets, sectors, commodities, or risk, the underlying data matters.

That is where S&P Global shows up.

Investors need benchmarks. Companies need credit ratings. Institutions need market data. Commodity markets need trusted pricing. Risk teams need tools they can rely on.

S&P Global sits in the middle of all of that.

It is not the loudest part of the market. But it is one of the parts the market keeps relying on.

That is what I like about the business. It does not need to predict the next hot investing trend to stay relevant. It benefits from markets becoming larger, more complex, more data-driven, and more dependent on information people can trust.

Why this business could matter more in an AI world

S&P Global is already building for this shift.

The company has been investing in tools that make trusted financial data easier to use inside modern workflows.

Kensho is one part of that strategy. S&P Global acquired the AI and machine learning company in 2018, well before the current AI boom, and has been using it to make complex financial information easier to search, structure, query, and use.

The Kensho LLM-ready API shows where this is heading. It lets customers connect S&P Global datasets to large language models and query that information using natural language.

That is more useful than a generic chatbot.

The value is not just that a customer can ask a question faster. The value is that the answer can be grounded in S&P Global data.

S&P Global is also pushing its data into the places customers already work. Its AI-related efforts include integrations and partnerships across cloud and data platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, Snowflake, and Databricks. S&P Global has also integrated its Commodity Insights data with Microsoft 365 Copilot through an AI-Ready Data connector, giving subscribed customers a way to surface commodities insights inside the Microsoft 365 tools they already use.

This all matters because the future may not be customers logging into one destination to look up information. It may be trusted data showing up inside the workflows where decisions are already being made.

Inside an investment process.

Inside a credit review.

Inside a risk model.

Inside a corporate research workflow.

In S&P Global’s Q1 2026 investor materials, the company said more than 300 customers were under contract or in trial for Kensho LLM-ready APIs, and API call volume doubled from February to March. It also said Market Intelligence customers who purchased at least one AI product grew annualized contract value at 1.3 times the rate of other customers. In S&P Global Energy, the figure was 2 times.

I would not overstate that.

It does not mean AI is already driving the whole company. It does not remove the risk that AI disrupts parts of the financial information industry. But it is a useful early signal that customers may be willing to pay more when trusted data becomes easier to use.

The Microsoft example is useful too. Microsoft says customers using S&P Global Commodity Insights AI-Ready Data in Microsoft 365 Copilot saw dramatically faster data extraction and retrieval. That is exactly the kind of workflow improvement that could make S&P Global data stickier over time.

That is the part I find interesting.

S&P Global may become less of a place customers go to look up financial information and more of a data layer that shows up inside the tools and agents doing the work.

That does not make the company immune from disruption. But if AI increases the value of trusted financial data, S&P Global has a strong hand to play.

The dividend growth case

This is where S&P Global becomes a more nuanced dividend idea.

The starting yield is modest. There is no way around that. If I was only looking for income today, there are plenty of stocks that would screen better.

But dividend growth investing is not only about the size of the first cheque.

I care more about whether the business can keep growing the dividend because earnings and cash flow keep growing underneath it. That is the part that matters most with S&P Global.

Metric	S&P Global (SPGI)
Dividend yield	~0.9%
Annual dividend	$3.88/share
Consecutive years of dividend growth	53 years
Dividend payout ratio	~24%
5-year dividend growth CAGR	~7%
2021–2025 adjusted EPS CAGR	~6.8%
2026 organic revenue growth outlook	6% to 8%
Q1 2026 revenue growth	10%
Q1 2026 adjusted EPS growth	14%

Sources: S&P Global dividend releases and dividend history; S&P Global 2025 Annual Report; S&P Global Q1 2026 earnings release and investor materials. Dividend yield and payout ratio are approximate and based on recent market data.

The payout ratio is low, which gives management flexibility. The dividend does not consume most of the company’s earnings. That matters because I want dividend growth supported by business performance, not financial engineering.

The dividend growth record is also hard to ignore. S&P Global has increased its dividend for more than five decades. That does not guarantee future increases, but it does show a long-standing commitment to returning cash to shareholders.

The recent dividend increase was small, only 1%. That is worth calling out. I do not love that. But I also do not think one conservative increase breaks the thesis.

The more important question is whether earnings and free cash flow can keep growing over time.

So far, the business is still growing. In Q1 2026, revenue grew 10% and adjusted diluted EPS grew 14%. Management is also guiding for 6% to 8% organic revenue growth in 2026 and adjusted EPS of $19.40 to $19.65.

That is not explosive growth.

But it is solid growth from a business with a strong competitive position, high recurring relevance, and a dividend that still consumes a relatively small share of earnings.

That is the balance I like.

S&P Global gives me a low starting yield, but also a low payout ratio, a long dividend growth history, strong free cash flow, and exposure to a business that should have room to keep compounding if it executes.

It is not a classic income stock.

It is a dividend growth stock where most of the return still has to come from business quality, earnings growth, and time.

Business quality: The real reason I like S&P Global

The dividend history matters.

The payout ratio matters.

But the real reason I am interested in S&P Global is the quality of the business.

This is not a company selling a product people casually swap out. S&P Global is tied into how investors, companies, lenders, risk teams, and institutions make decisions.

That is a powerful place to sit.

A company issuing debt does not want an unknown credit rating. An asset manager does not want a benchmark no one trusts. An analyst does not want market data that might be wrong. A commodity trader does not want pricing information the market does not recognize.

Trust is not a nice-to-have in this business. It is the product.

That is what makes S&P Global different from a basic financial data vendor. The company has brands, data sets, benchmarks, ratings, and customer relationships that have been built over decades.

That does not make it untouchable.

But it does make it hard to replace.

The other thing I like is that S&P Global has more than one way to win. Ratings can benefit when companies issue debt. Indices can benefit as more

money tracks benchmarks and index-linked products. Market Intelligence can benefit as customers need more data and analytics. Commodity Insights can benefit as energy and commodity markets become more complex.

Not every part of the business will be strong at the same time.

That is fine.

I would rather own a company with several durable engines than one that depends on a single product cycle.

The economics are attractive too. S&P Global is not building factories, drilling wells, or running a capital-heavy industrial operation. It owns data, benchmarks, ratings, analytics, and platforms. Once those assets are built and trusted, the business can generate strong margins and free cash flow.

That is what ultimately matters for the dividend.

A dividend growth stock needs more than a dividend history. It needs a business that can produce the cash to keep funding future increases.

S&P Global has done that for a long time.

The financial profile supports that view. In 2025, S&P Global generated $15.3 billion of revenue, a roughly 47% adjusted operating profit margin, and more than $5 billion of free cash flow. That is what I want to see behind a dividend growth stock: strong margins, real cash generation, and a business customers keep relying on.

Valuation: Not cheap, but reasonable for the quality

S&P Global is not a cheap stock.

That is usually how it works with businesses like this. The market knows S&P Global has a strong competitive position, high margins, strong free cash flow, and a dividend record that goes back decades.

So the question is not whether I am buying a bargain.

I am not.

The better question is whether I am paying a reasonable price for the quality of the business.

At the time of my review, S&P Global was trading at roughly 21 to 22 times forward earnings, depending on the data source and share price used. That is not cheap in an absolute sense, but it also does not look extreme for a company with S&P Global’s margins, free cash flow, market position, and dividend record.

A premium business can still be a bad investment if the valuation gets too stretched. I do not want to pay any price just because I like the company. But I also know businesses this good rarely look cheap.

The valuation is not the reason I am buying S&P Global.

The business quality is.

But valuation still matters, and today’s setup looks acceptable to me. The stock is not screaming cheap. It is not the kind of obvious bargain that makes the decision easy. But for a company with this margin profile, market position, cash generation, and long-term relevance, I can live with the current multiple.

The investment case does not need quick multiple expansion to work.

It needs earnings growth, free cash flow, dividend growth, buybacks, and time. If AI makes S&P Global’s data and analytics more valuable inside customer workflows, that could add to the upside. But I do not need that to happen overnight.

For me, S&P Global is a stock to accumulate patiently, not chase aggressively.

Risks I'm watching

I like the setup, but this is not risk-free.

AI is one of the reasons I’m interested in S&P Global, but it is also one of the risks. If customers decide cheaper tools are “good enough” for certain types of financial research or market data, parts of the business could face pricing pressure.

That is why the AI proof points matter. I want to see customers actually using and paying for S&P Global’s data inside their workflows, not just management talking about AI on earnings calls.

Ratings are another area to watch. When companies issue debt, ratings matter. But debt issuance does not move in a straight line. If capital markets slow, the ratings business can slow with it.

Valuation is also a risk. S&P Global is a high-quality company, but it is not a cheap stock. If earnings growth disappoints, the stock can underperform even if the business remains strong.

The dividend deserves watching too. The history is excellent, but the most recent increase was only 1%. That does not break the thesis for me, but it does tell me not to assume dividend growth will always be aggressive.

And then there is trust.

This may be the biggest long-term risk. S&P Global’s ratings, benchmarks, pricing data, and analytics only work if customers believe they can rely on them. The business is built on credibility, so a major error, regulatory issue, or reputational hit would matter.

These are the things I will be watching.

My bottom line

S&P Global is not a high-yield dividend stock.

The yield is low, the latest dividend increase was modest, and the stock is not cheap enough to remove valuation risk.

But the business quality is strong. S&P Global has a long dividend growth record, a low payout ratio, strong free cash flow, high margins, and a position inside the financial system that should be hard to replace.

That is the trade-off I am willing to make.

I am adding S&P Global to the Wealthy Owl Dividend Growth Portfolio because I think it can keep compounding earnings, cash flow, and dividends over time. I also think its trusted data assets could become more valuable as AI becomes a bigger part of financial research, credit analysis, risk management, and decision-making.

For performance tracking, I will use S&P Global’s July 2 closing price of $439.89.

S&P Global is not being added for income today. It is being added for quality, durability, and long-term dividend growth.

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