There is no such thing as a 'perfect' ASX stock, or any stock for that matter. After all, all companies face some level of risk in their missions to maximise returns for shareholders.
Accounting for this fact, I still believe there are some ASX stocks that come pretty close to being perfect. Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES) is one such stock.
Wesfarmers is one of the largest companies on the ASX, and easily the most diversified in terms of scope. The industrial and retail conglomerate owns dozens of underlying businesses. These range from chemical and fertiliser manufacturing and mining businesses to a clothing line and a pharmacy chain. But its most famous brands are titans of the Australian retail scene – Kmart, OfficeWorks, Target and, last but not least, Bunnings.
Wesfarmers also used to own Coles Group Ltd (ASX: COL) in its entirety before spinning it off in late 2018. That results in significant gains for shareholders, especially those who continued to hold both ASX stocks.
Over many decades, Wesfarmers has managed to combine the earnings power of all of these underlying businesses into a formidable profit machine. One that has managed to outperform the broader market over the past five and ten years, at least.
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Wesfarmers: A near-perfect ASX income stock down 12%
A significant contributor to that outperformance has come in the form of dividend returns. Wesfarmers has been a generous income payer for most of its long history as an ASX stock. It tends to increase its annual dividend most years by at least the rate of inflation, if not by more.
For instance, 2025's interim dividend that we saw paid out in April came in at 95 cents per share, a 4.4% rise over 2024's equivalent payout. The final dividend of $1.11 per share that was doled out last month was also a 3.74% rise over 2024's final dividend of $1.07. Both payments came with full franking credits attached, as is this ASX stock's habit.
Thanks to Wesfarmers' decades-long track record of delivering meaningful returns to shareholders, as well as its entrenched and diverse earnings base, I see no reason that this company won't continue to pay out a decent dividend for decades to come.
In some potentially good news for anyone eyeing off this company today, Wesfarmers is also looking a lot cheaper right now than it has for a while.
Back on 22 August, this ASX 200 stock hit a new record high of $95.18 a share. Since then, the company has tumbled more than 12% as of today's (at the time of writing) share price of $83.09. This is mainly thanks to the update that was released last week. As we covered at the time, this warned investors that "trading conditions remain challenging" for its Industrial and Safety division.
Given Wesfarmers was far more upbeat about its vastly more important retailers, this may have just given investors an excuse to blow off some steam. After all, Wesfarmers stock remains up a significant 24.5% over the past 12 months. The company is still not in bargain territory right now, at least in my view. But it is trading at the lowest pricing that we've seen since July.
