5 Communication Company Stocks to Ring in Dividends

During times of economic duress, we have always been able to rely on the dividends from those stocks forming the foundation of our portfolios. With recent events in the market, and investors looking to diversify their risk away and increase yield, we see the American telecoms as an intriguing way to increase your returns via dividends. AT&T AT&T (T) is the largest phone company in the United States and has been either the #1 or #2 mobile franchise in the country over the past decade, as measured by number of customers (trading spots with Verizon (VZ) depending on who conducted the last merger in most cases). Currently the company is moving forward with its acquisition of Deutche Telecom’s T-Mobile Unit in order to gain valuable spectrum in markets where AT&T itself has pushed its... more

Hershey Declares Quarterly Dividends

The Board of Directors of The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) today declared quarterly dividends of $0.345 on the Common Stock and $0.3125 on the Class B Common Stock. The dividends are payable September 15, 2011, to stockholders of record August 25, 2011. It is the 327th consecutive regular dividend on the Common Stock and the 108th consecutive regular dividend on the Class B Common Stock.... more

16 High Dividend Large Cap Stocks for Dividend Lovers

In a recent article we stated that since the beginning of this year, the average return of the 20 high dividend-yielding S&P500 stocks was 6.09%, beating the SPY by 2.33%. The second group of 20 stocks with lower dividend yields returned 3.29% on average, underperforming both the stocks in the first group and the SPY. We compiled a list of 16 large cap companies with tremendous market capitalization that also regularly pay fat dividend checks. The market data are sourced from Finviz. All companies in this list have a market capitalization above $10 billion and a dividend yield of at least 5.0%. These 16 stocks returned 16.5% (including dividends) during the past 12 months, beating government bonds by a large margin. 1. Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NLY) ... more

UIL Holdings Corporation Declares Quarterly Dividend

UIL Holdings Corporation (NYSE: UIL) announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.432 per share on its Common Stock at today’s Board meeting. This dividend is payable October 3, 2011 to shareowners of record at the close of business on September 19, 2011.... more

New York To Open With A Relief Rally, And Bond Yields Will Stay Low

Last week, the debt ceiling impasse cost US equity investors $680 billion last week. But weekend promises of a deal to raise the debt ceiling over the weekend are probably good enough for a Monday rally in New York. Further, history has been kind to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the year before presidential elections, rising by an average 12%. So far in the third year of President Obama's first term, the DJIA is up only 4.9%, for the smallest increase since the streak of gains began in 1941. Although a U.S. downgrade or partial default would be directly linked to Treasuries, bond markets are signaling investors would flee riskier assets for the perceived safety of fixed income. Treasury yields average 0.72 percentage point less than the rest of the world's sovereign debt... more

Master Limited Partnerships For Yield And Growth

Master limited partnerships dominated the list of consistent weekly dividend increases for a second consecutive week. Master limited partnerships are pass-through entities, which are mostly engaged in transportation, storage and distribution of oil and gas. MLPs are monopolies, which typically enjoy toll-booth type business models. MLP investors are called limited partners, and the shares are called units. MLPs are not taxed at the entity level, but at the individual unitholder level. The K-1 tax package details each individual partner's share of the partnership's income and expenditures from various sources. In addition, unitholders need to understand the difference between general and limited partners as well as tax implications for holding MLPs in tax deferred accounts. Last week I... more

Finding The Perfect Dividend Stock

If we were able to design the perfect dividend stock it would be one that is both high-yield and provide a high dividend growth rate. Its share price would appreciate ratable with its increasing dividend. All of this would be driven by increasing earnings and cash flow. Ok, so much for our Utopian world, the perfect dividend stock just may be a balanced compromise. Consider the following: High Yield/Low Dividend Growth When investors first consider investing for income, High Yield is usually their first focus. It is human nature to want it now and want a lot of it. Unfortunately, high yield stocks often carry higher than average risk - there is usually a reason that the stock's yield is above average. It could be because the company is in a limited growth industry, is in a... more

Promising Mid- and Large-Cap Dividend Stocks

It is important for investors to select stocks with more than one interesting buy criteria. Interesting stocks must have good operational and profitability ratios, strong growth figures. Finally, they must be attractively valued. I have tried to summarize these requirements and screened a dividend list (from low-yield to high-yield paying stocks) of 30 stocks with interesting performance and valuation figures. Stocks from the sheet are mid and large caps (market capitalization of more than USD 1 billion) with double digit long-term earnings growth rates (8 percent minimum for revenue growth and more than 10 percent earnings per share growth). Additional criteria are the return on investment for the capital efficiency and operating margin in order to indicate the profitability of the... more

The Top 100 Dividend Stocks: August 2011

As the economy remains uncertain, it’s unclear how things will end up being fixed by the U.S. government. But one thing that does seem clear is that safer investing such as dividend investing is gaining a lot of ground. This makes it great timing to publish our monthly post about the top dividend stocks in the S&P500. It’s always a popular post, not only because of the list itself but also because of the fact that we start from that list when looking for high quality dividend stocks that help us build a passive income portfolio.Over the past few months, we have looked at quite a few criteria that have helped us find the best dividend stocks including current yield, dividend growth and also companies that produce solid enough earnings to keep up the dividend payments. We summed it all... more

W. R. Berkley Corporation Declares Dividend

W. R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE: WRB) announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of 8 cents per share to be paid on October 4, 2011 to stockholders of record at the close of business on September 12, 2011.... more