A High Yield Dividend Champion Portfolio for July

In December 2010, I created a screen/hypothetical portfolio called the "High Yield Dividend Champion Portfolio." The screen is tracked publicly as a continuous hypothetical portfolio with a starting balance of $100,000 on Scott's Investments (see the right hand column for a link to the spreadsheet). Like many of the screens, strategies, and portfolios I track and prefer, this strategy takes a small number of historically relevant ideas, to create a simple, yet powerful action plan for the individual investor. As I have previously detailed, Some studies have shown that the, highest yielding, low payout stocks perform better over time than stocks with higher payouts and lower yields. This portfolio attempts to capture the best high yield, low payout stocks with a history of raising... more

High Yield Stock For Possible Dividend Increases

Summer can be a slow period for stock traders and investors. One possible catalyst for a stock price increase is a dividend increase announcement. Companies with a regular pattern of annual dividend increases tend to make the increase during the same period each year. Here is a list of high yield stocks that normally increase their dividend rate in July or August. If a stock does increase its dividend rate, the share price may follow higher. Here are four stocks currently paying an attractive dividend yield, which may increase the distribution in the next 60 days. Delta Natural Gas Company Inc. (Nasdaq: DGAS) is a small cap, natural gas transport company with a history of dividend increases. The company's fiscal year ends at the end of June, and the dividend is usually increased... more

Apple REIT Dividend Adjustment

According to the Long Island Business News, Apple REIT Eight, a non-traded real estate investment trust sold exclusively by Syosset-based David Lerner Associates, recently announced that it has reduced its annual dividend from 7 percent to 5 percent, blaming a "slower than anticipated" recovery for some of its extended-stay hotels. Apple REIT Eight, which owns 51 Marriott- and Hilton-brand hotels, said in a statement that "the company believes that it is prudent to lower the annualized distribution rate until such time as a recovery can be achieved." The REIT had come under fire recently for defaulting on mortgages for five of its hotels. The company said it has renegotiated and reinstated two of those loans with payments resumed in full and the three other loans "remain under... more

9 High Yield Reits With Growing Dividends

U.S. REITs were created in 1960 by Congress as a way for all investors to have access to large-scale, income-producing real estate accessible. To qualify as a REIT, the trust must comply with IRS rules. These rules include: 1) distributing annually as dividends at least 90% of its taxable income, 2) investing at least 75% of its total assets in real estate and 3) deriving at least 75% of gross income from real estate. The 90% distribution requirement along with no corporate income taxes are the reasons REITs yields are often above average. However, it is important to note that because REITs pay no income tax, their dividends are not eligible for the special treatment as a "qualified dividends", which are normally taxed at 15%. When comparing REIT yields to investments with... more

Top Paying Dividend Stocks by Industry

Companies in certain industries tend to provide higher dividend yields than companies in other industries. Utilities and basic materials companies tend to consistently pay good dividend yields. However, these two sectors are further subdivided into various industries. Within basic materials, gold mining stocks often provide small dividends if any dividend at all, while some steel companies provide substantial dividends. The following list contains the top paying dividend stock for each industry using Edgar’s industry classification. I applied a filter to eliminate any company with a market capitalization below $500 million. While this is a somewhat arbitrary level, the goal is to avoid small capitalization stocks. It should also be noted that a few industries did not have any companies... more

High Dividend Dow Components Made a Huge Comeback

The Dow10 strategy calls for investing in 10 of the highest dividend yielding stocks in the DJIA. At the end of the year, the portfolio is reconstructed to include the prior year's dividend champions. In his book Stocks for the Long Run, Professor Jeremy Siegel mentions the Dow10 strategy as one of the most successful investment strategies. We back tested this strategy using the past decade's data. The dividend champions include DuPont (DD) (10 years) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM) (9 years), followed by AT&T (T), General Motors (GM), Altria (MO) (8 years). Here are our results: [...] The ten-year cumulative return for the DJIA portfolio is 40% whereas the Dow10 portfolio's return is only 30%. Actually, the Dow10 strategy was doing fine until the financial crisis. Two of the biggest... more

Momentum Ideas: 4 Rallying High Yield Stocks Undervalued by Enterprise Value

If you’re looking for momentum ideas that offer a high yield income, using the Levered Free Cashlow / Enterprise Value (LFCF/EV) ratio on rallying stocks might offer an interesting starting place for your analysis. All of the stocks listed below meet the following criteria: Market cap above $300M Dividend yield above 5% Rallying above 20-day, 50-day and 200-day moving averages Undervalued by the Levered Free Cash Flow / Enterprise Value ratio (LFCF/EV) Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the top six stocks mentioned below. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.Your browser does not support iframes. LFCF/EV provides a metric considered to be more accurate than market capitalization to determine a company's... more

Dividends Give Investors 11 Percent Raise

Dividends are going up, up, up. According to the latest report from Standard & Poor’s, the number of U.S. companies that boosted their dividends in the second quarter, which ended last week, rose to 444. That’s up from 335 raises in the second quarter of last year, among the 7,000 companies that report such information. Just 21 companies decreased their dividend payouts, down from 34 cuts last year. The number of increases means that investors are receiving bigger dividend streams, of course, with average yield for dividend payers rising to 2.51 per cent at the end of the second quarter, up from 2.39 per cent at the end of the first quarter. “If dividends were a paycheque, dividend investors would have received an 11.1 per cent raise in the first half of 2011,” said Howard... more

9 Large-Cap Dividend Stocks Being Targeted by Short Sellers

Short squeeze opportunities arise when a stock becomes highly shorted. As there are fewer short sellers to sell the stock, any move up can trigger a short squeeze in which short sellers must close out their positions, which puts even more upward pressure on the stock price. We searched for potential short squeeze opportunities by screening large-cap dividend stocks (paying dividend yields above 2%) for those that have seen significant increases in short selling month-over-month.Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the top six stocks mentioned below. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.Your browser does not support iframes. We also created a price-weighted index of the stocks mentioned below, and monitored the... more

3 Dividend Stocks for Your Watchlist

We can help you keep tabs on your companies with MyWatchlist.com, our free, personalized stock-tracking service. Here are three dividend stocks for your watchlist. 1. InterDigital (Nasdaq: IDCC) Similar to Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) , InterDigital holds patents on key wireless technology. As the recent $4.5 billion sale of Nortel's wireless patents shows, these assets are definitely valuable.InterDigital has been raking in the dough from its wireless patents and is working on further enhancements that should lead to more growth for years. It's also currently sitting on $11.60 per share of cash and no debt. Shares have risen the past few weeks but still trade for a low, cash-adjusted P/E of just under 12. While you're waiting for the market to revalue the stock, the company pays a $0.40... more