In finance, stocks consist of all of the shares into which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares.

Our research team believe it’s a good idea to invest in a few good quality FTSE 100 shares. As these two pay decent dividends and have reasonable prospects for growing their dividends a little each year from where we are today. That sounds good to us!

Meanwhile, each company has an undemanding valuation, which bodes well for future expansion of their share prices in the future.

Retail Stock

FTSE 100 clothing, footwear, accessories and home products retailer Next looks set to become a survivor in what has become a difficult sector. We think that’s because of the success of its catalogue and online sales strategy working in harmony with the store estate.

The second-quarter trading update released at the end of July revealed to us that sales and profits edged up by modest single-digit percentages in the period. We think that’s a far better trading outcome than many struggling retailers have been experiencing lately.

The good trading was better than the directors had previously anticipated and they increased full-price sales guidance for the second half of the year to an anticipated increase of 3% rather than 1.7% as stated earlier. Things are moving in the right direction and I think the stock is attractive.

At the recent share price close to 6,007p, the forward-looking earnings multiple runs just below 13 for the trading year to January 2021 and the anticipated dividend yield is around 2.9%. City analysts following the firm are pencilling in modest increases in the dividend ahead. We think Next looks like a stalwart that we’d be happy to add to our portfolio.

Packaging Stock

Despite delivering decent-looking half-year financial numbers with its interim report at the beginning of August, paper and packaging firm Mondi saw its share price fall back on the news.

We like the stock and see the current weakness in the share price as an opportunity to hop aboard the story on better terms.

The recent share price close to 1,595p throws up a forward-looking earnings multiple of just over nine for 2020 and the anticipated dividend yield is a little under 5%.