4 Dividend Stocks Showing You the Money

Dividend checks continue to get fatter in Corporate America, as more companies jack up their distribution rates. Readers of the Income Investor newsletter can certainly appreciate that kind of thinking. Let's take a closer look at some of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week. Let's start with Corning (NYSE: GLW). "The company has turned into a consistent cash generator and we are confident in our ability to sustain a higher dividend payout to our shareholders," CEO Wendell Weeks explains, as the specialty glass and ceramics giant boosts its quarterly dividend by 50% to $0.075 a share. Corning is also initiating a $1.5 billion share buyback. Corning hadn't moved its yield higher in five years before last week's move, but it's an entirely different story at RPM International (NYSE: RPM). The maker of specialty coatings, sealants, and building materials is extending its streak of annual hikes to 38 years after increasing its quarterly disbursements by $0.215 a share. That's an impressive run, but RPM has nothing on Northwest Natural Gas (NYSE: NWN) . The Portland-based utility's new quarterly rate of $0.445 a share stretches its string of annual increases to a whopping 56 years. Finally, we have Bank of the Ozarks (Nasdaq: OZRK) giving its quarterly distributions a 5% upgrade to $0.10 a share. The Arkansas-based banker will post its quarterly results Wednesday. These companies join investment banker Epoch Holding (Nasdaq: EPHC), elder-care facilities REIT Senior Housing Properties Trust (NYSE: SNH), and insurer American Financial Group (NYSE: AFG) in recently jacking up their yields.... Read more