Epoch Holding (EPHC) Increases Quarterly Dividend 20% to $0.06; Yields 1.6%

Epoch Holding Corporation (Nasdaq: EPHC) has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.06 per common share, $0.24 annualized. The dividend is a 20% increase from the current rate of $0.05. The dividend is payable on February 11, 2011 to shareholders of record as of January 28, 2011. The ex-dividend date is January 26, 2011. Yield on the dividend is 1.6%.... more

Resource America (REXI) Declares $0.03 Quarterly Dividend; 1.7% Yield

Resource America, Inc. (Nasdaq: REXI) announces that its Board of Directors has authorized a quarterly dividend of $0.03 per outstanding common share, $0.12 annualized. The dividend is payable January 31, 2011, to all holders of record at the close of business on January 21, 2011. The ex-dividend date is January 19, 2011. Yield on the dividend is 1.7%.... more

15 U.S. Electric Utilities Paying Over 5% Dividends

Charlotte-NC, based Duke Energy (DUK) has announced a deal to buy Progress Energy Inc (PGN) for $13.7 billion in an all-stock transaction. The combined company to be called Duke Energy Corp would be the largest utility in the U.S. with about 7.1 million customers in the states of Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Back in 2005 Duke Energy acquired Cincinnati, OH-based Cinergy for $9.0 billion in stock to expand its business in the Midwest.... more

Developers Diversified (DDR) Increases Quarterly Dividend to $0.04; Yields 1.2%; Updates FY11 FFO Outlook

Developers Diversified Realty Corporation (NYSE: DDR) today declared its first quarter 2011 common stock dividend of $0.04 per share, $0.16 annualized. The dividend is a 100% increase from the current rate of $0.02. The common dividend is payable April 5, 2011 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 22, 2011. The ex-dividend date is March 18, 2011. Yield on the dividend is 1.2%. Additionally, the company sees FY11 operating FFO of $0.90 - $1.05, compared to the consensus of $0.40.... more

RAIT Financial Trust (RAS) Declares $0.03 Annual Dividend; 1.2% Yield

RAIT Financial Trust (NYSE: RAS) today announced that after reviewing RAIT’s estimated 2010 REIT taxable income, RAIT’s Board of Trustees declared a 2010 annual cash dividend on RAIT’s common shares of $0.03 per common share. The dividend will be paid on January 31, 2011 to holders of record on January 21, 2011. The ex-dividend date is January 19, 2011. Yield on the dividend is 1.2%.... more

Dividend Portfolio Progress Report: December 2010

Once again it is time for a goals/progress update. I am pleased to report that annualized dividend income increased in December, extending the streak to 6 consecutive months of increases after June 2010′s decline. Since I began publicly tracking annualized dividend income in November 2007, it has increased in 35 of the last 37 months.... more

11 Foreign Stocks With Dividend Yields Over 5%

Some foreign large-cap companies trade on the OTC market instead of the organized exchanges. Investors can find well-established companies paying high dividends on these markets. Though trading volumes may be thin, for the average buy-and-hold long-term investor this should not be an issue. To identify some of the high-yielding large cap foreign stocks, I ran the screener with the following criteria:... more

20 Nordic Stocks Yielding More Than 4%

Nordic countries include Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and their accociated territories (e.g. Greenland). “Scandinavia” is also used often as a synonym for the Nordic countries, but in the strict sense Scandinavia only includes Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The region has a population of approximately 25 million and covers 3.5 million square kilometres (Greenland accounting for around 60% of total area alone). [source: Wikipedia] If you are not familiar with these countries, you probably have heard about Vikings. They came from Scandinavia and between eight and eleventh century settled or raided most of Northern Europe, including coastal Finland and cities like London. They sailed in the south all the way to Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, and in the west, all the way to... more

Highest Yielding, Highest Momentum Dividend Champions

I frequently use DRIP Investing's US Dividend Champions list to identify potential high yield equities. My site tends to focus on price momentum strategies for picking ETFs and stocks. For those investors who want to combine active stock management and momentum/technical strategies with reliable dividend paying stocks, the US Dividend Champions list is a great place to start since it is a list of stocks with a history of raising dividends for at least 25 years. Combining the Dividend Champions list with a basic price momentum strategy yields some potential portfolio candidates. I previously detailed a study showing that among the S&P 1500 the high yielding, highest price momentum stocks produce greater returns that lower yielding, lower price momentum stocks. Specifically, the study... more

Dividend Champions Smackdown IX

In previous installments of the Smackdown series, I screened the Dividend Champions list of companies that have paid higher dividends for at least 25 straight years (which can be found here) using factors such as yield, payout ratio, and dividend growth rates (which was the focus of Smackdown VIII). I generally only do one Smackdown each month, shortly after updating the Dividend Champions spreadsheet, but I was intrigued by some of the recent comments on articles by myself and other authors to the effect that we always seem to come up with the same companies, as deserving as they may be. Some people also mentioned a desire to consider both small cap and mid cap companies, which makes sense, from the perspective of gaining some additional diversification. Although definitions vary small... more