General Electric’s  (GE) stock is up more than 30% since late August. The stock continues to look like a solid long-term holding for dividend investors, and there’s reason to believe GE might not look back.

Investors have long been frustrated with GE. The share price is lower than it was 10 years ago. The company has generally overpromised and under delivered for years, leading many to question whether or not CEO Jeff Immelt is still the right man for the job. And who can forgive and forget the 2009 dividend cut after the company had defended its dividend plan for months?

We believed the pessimism surrounding GE was deserved but underappreciated the quality of GE’s industrial services business and the chance for GE to “get it right” this time for shareholders with its portfolio transformation.

As a result, we added GE to our Top 20 Dividend Stocks portfolio in July 2015 and, while it’s still too early, were pleased to see the company’s encouraging third quarter results.

Industrial segment organic sales grew 4%, and operating margins expanded by 100 basis points. Backlog ($270 billion) is also $9 billion higher than it was exiting 2014 despite weakness in oil & gas markets.

While foreign currency headwinds are reducing reported sales growth by about 5%, GE’s exposure to longer-cycle infrastructure businesses such as power generation, jet engines, and energy management is serving it well as the world economy’s recovery lengthens in duration.

GE’s stock has gained over 30% since bottoming out in late August, driven in large part by the company’s transformation plan tracking ahead of expectations – as of mid-October, GE had signed agreements to sell GE Capital assets worth more than $125 billion (well ahead of its $100 billion divestiture target for 2015) and has closed asset sale transaction worth about $60 billion. This week, GE also announced the Synchrony share exchange rate, which will reduce shares outstanding by about 6.6%.

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