Buckle Up for a Bumpy Ride With Foreign Dividend ETFs

Investors know that dividends are a key component of long-term returns. Indeed, more than half of the real return provided by U.S. stocks in the past century came from dividends. In the international developed markets more companies pay dividends and their yields are higher than U.S. companies'. As a result, foreign large-blend exchange-traded funds and foreign dividend ETFs each have yield premiums of about 100 basis points relative to their U.S. counterparts.In addition, because dividends are more common across foreign equities, foreign dividend funds tend to be better diversified across sectors. However, while dividends tend to suggest safety, we highlight that there are some risks that are specific to international dividend funds that do not exist for domestic dividend funds.Greater... more

Validus Holdings, Ltd. Announces Quarterly Dividend

Validus Holdings, Ltd. (NYSE: VR) announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per common share and $0.25 per common share equivalent for which each outstanding warrant is exercisable. The dividend is payable on September 30, 2011 to shareholders and warrant holders of record on September 15, 2011.... more

GAMCO Board Declares Third Quarter Dividend and Authorizes $20 Million Buyback of Zero Coupon Debentures

GAMCO Investors, Inc. (NYSE: GBL) announced today that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.04 per share on its Class A Shares and Class B Shares, payable on September 27, 2011 to shareholders of record on September 13, 2011.... more

Atmos Energy Declares Regular Quarterly Dividend

Atmos Energy Corporation (NYSE: ATO) said today that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend on the company’s common stock of 34 cents per share. The indicated annual dividend is $1.36. The dividend will be paid on September 12, 2011, to shareholders of record on August 25, 2011. This is the company’s 111th consecutive quarterly dividend.... more

Portland General Electric Declares Dividend

On August 3, 2011, the Board of Directors of Portland General Electric Company (NYSE: POR) declared a quarterly common stock dividend of 26.5 cents per share. The dividend is payable on or before October 17, 2011, to shareholders of record at the close of business on September 26, 2011.... more

CIRCOR Declares Regular Quarterly Dividend

The Board of Directors of CIRCOR International, Inc. (NYSE: CIR) has declared a regular quarterly dividend of three and three-quarter cents ($0.0375) per share on CIRCOR’s Common Stock payable on August 29, 2011 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on August 15, 2011.... more

Safety Announces Second Quarter 2011 Results and Declares Third Quarter 2011 Dividend

Safety Insurance Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SAFT) today reported second quarter 2011 results. Net income for the quarter ended June 30, 2011 was $4.1 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, compared to net income of $15.1 million, or $1.00 per diluted share, for the comparable 2010 period. Net income for the six months ended June 30, 2011 was $0.1 million, or $0.01 per diluted share, compared to $27.9 million, or $1.84 per diluted share, for the comparable 2010 period. Safety’s book value per share decreased to $42.56 at June 30, 2011 from $43.37 at December 31, 2010. Safety paid $0.50 per share in dividends to investors during the quarter ended June 30, 2011 compared to $0.40 per share during the comparable 2010 period. Safety paid $1.80 per share in dividends to investors during the... more

Scripps Networks Interactive Declares Quarterly Dividend

The Board of Directors of Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. (NYSE: SNI) has declared a quarterly dividend of 10 cents ($0.10) per share payable on Sept. 9, 2011, to shareholders of record at the close of business on Aug. 31, 2011.... more

Fresh Del Monte Produce’s Board of Directors Votes to Increase Quarterly Dividend

Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. (NYSE: FDP) announced today that, as a result of its continued strong operating cash flow and solid performance, its board of directors has voted to raise the Company’s regular quarterly cash dividend from five cents ($0.05) per share to ten cents ($0.10) per share, beginning with the regular quarterly cash dividend that will be payable on September 9, 2011 to shareholders of record on August 17, 2011.... more

Is This Huge Dividend Still Safe?

After completing a bet-the-farm acquisition of rural accounts from Verizon (NYSE: VZ) , Frontier set about upgrading the new assets in order to comply with government-imposed conditions for the deal. The company has been pumping a huge part of its cash flows into that juicy 10% dividend yield, even as it rolls out expensive infrastructure upgrades on the old Verizon stuff. And so we arrive at this morning's second-quarter report. Sales more than doubled year over year to $1.3 billion, while earnings fell by 8% to $32 million, or by 45% to $0.06 per share when you account for the massive dilution that came with the Verizon deal a year ago. All of this was in line with Wall Street estimates, but investors weren't impressed; shares swooned as much as 8.1% on the news before climbing back to... more