High Yield Large Cap Energy Utilities: Recent Performance and Dividend Growth, Part 2

Utilities are purveyors of necessities and usually at a government-regulated price and with restricted competition. Due to the government control of energy production and distribution and the growing need for power, energy utilities are generally considered reliable and predicable businesses. The regulated pricing for energy tends to make utility dividends reasonably secure and somewhat predictable, though this security means that the dividends are unlikely to grow at a rapid pace. Utilities are also generally far less volatile than the market and the demand for utilities only increases over time as technology advances into new realms and the population continues to grow. I previously identified the six largest energy utilities within in the S&P 500 that have a yield of over 4%. This... more

New Jersey Resources Board of Directors Declares Dividend

The board of directors of New Jersey Resources (NJR) has unanimously declared a quarterly dividend on its common stock of $.36 per share. The dividend will be payable on October 3, 2011, to shareowners of record on September 15, 2011.... more

Lenox Wealth Management, Inc. Declares Dividend

Lenox Wealth Management, Inc. (Pink Sheets: LNXW) announces its Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of 23 cents per share at its Board of Directors Meeting held on July 15, 2011. The dividend is being paid to shareholders of record on July 29, 2011 and is payable on August 15, 2011.... more

4 Dividend Stocks Showing You the Money

Readers of the Income Investor newsletter certainly can 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 Walgreen (NYSE: WBA) coming through with the largest increase in its 110-year history. The drugstore chain is prescribing a quarterly dividend increase of 29% to $0.225 a share. Walgreen has now come through with 36 consecutive years of jacking up its yield.... more

Outstanding Businesses Raising Dividends

It takes an outstanding business to increase dividends for decades, and outstanding businesses are often outstanding long-term investments. Weak businesses simply can't and don't raise dividends for decades. Below I have highlighted ten exceptional businesses, each of which has raised distributions for over 5 years in a row, and which also announced dividend increases over the past week: Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (EPD) provides midstream energy services to producers and consumers of natural gas, NGLs, crude oil, refined products, and petrochemicals in North America. This master limited partnership announced increase in quarterly distributions to 60.50 cents/unit, which represents a 5.2 percent increase over the $0.575 per unit distribution rate declared with respect to the... more

5 Utility Companies Offering Yields of 4% or More

Utilities are among the safest equities in the global market, providing nifty profits to investors. They offer high and stable dividend yields, as well as significant capital appreciation. I decided to screen for the top five large-cap utility stocks offering 4% dividends or more. All of the companies show a maximum P/E ratio of 18 (data from finviz/morningstar, and current as of the July 17 close). Dominion Resources (D) will announce its Q2 earnings on July 28. As of the July 17 close, the Virginia-based company had a market cap of $27.9 billion with a 9.13 P/E and a 14.91 forward P/E. Estimated EPS growth for the next five years is 5.98%, while earnings increased by 136.41% this year. With a... more

7 Low-Debt Dividend Stocks Undervalued by Graham Number

Value investors search for stocks that appear underpriced relative to their intrinsic value, which is based off of company metrics such as earnings or book value. One helpful way to find undervalued opportunities is from the “godfather of value investing” himself, Benjamin Graham.Graham created an equation to calculate the maximum fair value for a stock, referred to as the Graham Number. Any stock trading at a significant discount to this number would appear undervalued.The Graham Number only requires two data points: current earnings per share and current book value per share. 
The Graham Number = Square Root of (22.5) x (TTM Earnings per Share) x (MRQ Book Value per Share). 

This equation assumes that a stock is overvalued if P/E is over 15 or P/BV is over 1.5.We... more

Top 10 Stocks With the Greatest Dividend Increases

Non-parametric concordance analysis was performed for dividend-paying stocks to estimate the proportion of dividend payouts that increased the most over last 13 years. The top 10 stocks, which raised dividends the most, are listed in columns of the table below along with Yahoo! key statistics - (click charts to expand): A plot of the dividends paid out by these 10 stocks looking back in time from July 15, 2011, is provided below: It is clear that, for example, KMP, BPL, and PAA... more

5 Basic Material Companies Offering Nifty Dividends

Since the last decade, basic material companies have been the outperformers of the market. Moreover, their products are vital for the industrial companies, as well as individuals. As we are experiencing some sort of recovery, I expect these companies to be outperformers for this year as well. Some of these companies offer nifty dividends. Here is a list of five large-cap basic material titans paying excellent dividends and priced with low P/E ratios. All of the companies pay a minimum 3% dividend yield (data derived from Finviz/Morningstar, and is current as of July 17 close): ConocoPhillips (CPO) : COP is to split up its operations in two, which is expected to happen in the Q1 or Q2 of 2012. The oil company, as of July 17, has a $108.02... more

Gannett Board Doubles Dividend

Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) announced today that its board of directors approved a 100 percent increase in its regular quarterly dividend to 8 cents per share from 4 cents per share. The increased quarterly dividend is payable on October 3, 2011 to shareholders of record on September 9, 2011. This dividend represents the 172nd consecutive quarterly dividend paid by the company since it went public in 1967.... more