5 Highly Profitable Large Caps With Rapid Dividend Growth

Profitability is an important consideration when choosing dividend stocks. If a company’s profitability declines, its dividend may be in immediate danger of getting discontinued. Here we screened large cap dividend stocks for those that have seen at least a 15% increase in dividend per share, comparing the trailing-twelve-month dividend to the current year’s dividend per share estimate. These stocks pay sustainable dividend yields below 7% and payout ratios below 35%. We then screened this universe for those that are also highly profitable, beating their industry peers on gross, operating, and pretax margins. Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned below. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment... more

7 Large MLPs That Yield Over 5%: Recent Performance and Distribution Growth

A Master Limited Partnership (“MLP”) is a type of partnership that is publicly traded on a securities exchange. MLPs combine the tax structure of limited partnerships with the liquidity of publicly traded securities, where most private partnerships are relatively illiquid when compared to the public equity markets. MLPs usually provide their investors, the limited partners, with distributions. Most MLPs are publicly traded oil & gas pipeline businesses that earn stable income from the transport of oil, gasoline and/or natural gas. Many derive their revenue based on the amount of product transported and are not sensitive to price fluctuations except where they affect demand. Some MLPs involve other natural resources, and certain other industries, but oil & gas are the most common. Many... more

Windstream: Dividend Dynamo or Blowup?

Let's examine how Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) stacks up in four critical areas to determine whether it's a dividend dynamo or a disaster in the making. 1. YieldFirst and foremost, dividend investors like a large forward yield. But if a yield gets too high, it may reflect investors' doubts about the payout's sustainability. If investors had confidence in the stock, they'd be buying it, driving up the share price and shrinking the yield.... more

3 Dividend Stocks to Diversify Your Portfolio

Ah, the sweet smell of ... fertilizer?Terra Nitrogen (NYSE: TNH) , a producer and distributor of nitrogen fertilizer products, had a rough year in 2009 when it saw its net income drop by nearly two-thirds to just $144 million. But 2010 proved to be a much better year, and 2011 is starting off on the right foot as well. Over the past 12 months, net income has doubled from 2009 levels, and free cash flow has improved even more, coming in at $309 million. Meanwhile, the company has no debt. And the icing on this cake? Terra Nitrogen's P/E is around 10, which is less than half the overall industry average. Even though Terra Nitrogen's current dividend yield of 13% may not stay quite that high, its five-year average dividend yield of more than 8% is something every dividend investor can... more

Bolster Your Portfolio With Dividend Stocks

#1 – Understand the Importance of Dividends In today’s market, relying on capital appreciation in order to achieve investment goals is increasingly difficult. It is exceedingly important for all types of investors to bolster their portfolios by adding stocks that pay dividends in order to position their investments to deliver reliable gains. If executed properly, investing for income can help investors build positions over time and add to their capital through Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRIPs) or provide them with a steady inflow of cash throughout the year. In addition, dividends can provide investors with steady, stable gains during times of global and economic uncertainty that has the ability to wreak havoc on the market. #2 – Invest, Don’t Speculate “The... more

Cardinal Financial Corporation Declares Quarterly Dividend

Cardinal Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: CFNL) (the “Company”) today announced that its Board of Directors has declared its quarterly cash dividend of $0.03 per share. This dividend will be paid on August 19, 2011 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on August 4, 2011.... more

10 Mid Caps to Rule Them All

For reference, here are the choices for the previous nine weeks:

Jazz Pharmaceuticals
Thompson Creek Metals
American Water Works
Sohu
Gafisa
Arch Coal
Bank of Hawaii
Foot Locker
Perfect World

For the final week of 10 mid caps to rule them all, I'd like to throw diversification completely out of the picture and highlight arguably the strongest dividend growth story of the past decade, Alliance Resource Partners (Nasdaq: ARLP).

What it does... more

The Simplest Place to Find Great Dividends

Sure, you can get huge yields from some areas of the market that you may never have heard of before. Mortgage REITs are taking advantage of wide interest rate spreads to reap profits. Master limited partnerships are turning high energy and commodity prices into big income for many investors. But if you're already retired, near retirement age, or simply too conservative to go off the deep end with sky-high yields that almost look too good to be true, you'll find a much easier hunting ground for great dividend stocks. To find it, you don't need to look any further than the Dow Jones Industrial Average.... more

2 Materials Dividends to Buy, 5 for the Trash

If anyone had a doubt about the power of dividends, they need only read Jeremy Siegel's The Future for Investors, where he writes: "Dividends matter a lot. Reinvesting dividends is the critical factor giving the edge to most winning stocks in the long run." An important metric for dividendsThe materials sector has several stocks that pay huge dividends. Today I'm going to introduce you to two that are worth your consideration -- and five that should be thrown out with the trash. While some people think the size of a dividend yield is all that matters, in reality, the yield just scratches the surface of what you need to investigate.... more

Hedge Funds' Favorite S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats

The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index is a very prestigious and popular index among dividend investors. The Index measures the performance of blue-chip S&P 500 companies that have increased their dividends at least 25 consecutive years. The large-cap companies in this index must also have an average daily trading volume of at least $5 million for the six months prior to the index reference date. In a previous article, we have already indicated that the Dividend Aristocrats Index beat the S&P 500 index over the past 1, 3, 5 and 7 years. Since the beginning of 2011, the companies in the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index returned 7.05% vs. 6.59% gain for the SPY. Average dividend yield of all stocks in the S&P 500 is 1.81%, while the average dividend yield of all 42 stocks is 2.82%. ... more