Triangle Capital (TCAP) Declares $0.42 Quarterly Dividend; 8.9% Yield

Triangle Capital Corporation (Nasdaq: TCAP) announced Wednesday that its board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.42 per share, $1.68 annualized. The dividend is payable on December 29, 2010 to shareholders of record on December 15, 2010. The ex-dividend date is December 13, 2010. The yield is 8.9%... more

RLI Corp. (RLI) Declares $7.00 Per Share Special Dividend; 12.1% Yield

RLI Corp. (NYSE: RLI) has declared an extraordinary cash dividend of $7.00 per share. The dividend is payable on December 29, 2010 to shareholders of record as of December 16, 2010. The ex-dividend date is December 14, 2010. Yield on the dividend is 12.1%.... more

Brown-Forman (BF-A) Declares Special Cash Dividend of $1/Share, Yielding 1.53%

Brown-Forman (NYSE: BF-A) declares a special cash dividend of $1 per common share. The dividend is payable on Dec. 28 to shareholders of record on Dec. 10. The ex-dividend date is Dec. 8. With Brown-Forman shares closing at $65.24 yesterday, the special dividend yields 1.53%.... more

My Dividend Champions List as of December 1st

The Dividend Champions spreadsheet has been updated through 11/30/10. To download the latest version of the U.S. Dividend Champions spreadsheet or PDF, go here. (Note that all references to Champions mean companies that have paid higher dividends for at least 25 straight years; Contenders have streaks of 10-24 years; Challengers have streaks of 5-9 years.) During the past month, I continued to focus on companies subject to deletion because of back-to-back years of paying the same amount in dividends. This dividend streak “death watch” has now ended, as all of those companies have made their fourth-quarter declarations. Although many were subject to deletion, we ended the month with 416 companies (98 Champions, 126 Contenders, and 192 Challengers). The good news is that we appear... more

Your Dividends Are Dead!

Are dividend stocks the new Beanie Babies? On the surface, you'd assume that stocks paying out cash have little in common with children's plush toys, but some of my colleagues would disagree. They'd call dividend investing a fad, just like the Beanie Babies of yesteryear. Could that possibly be true? While investor interest in dividends is surely piqued, blue-chip companies like Procter & Gamble, Intel, and Microsoft continue boosting dividends at outsized levels, and come with pretty cheap price tags to boot.... more

They May Not Be 'Aristocrats,' But These Dividend Stocks Are Worth a Look

Following the 2008 meltdown in stocks, dividend strategies have become popular because they provide steadier returns. One such dividend strategy is buying stocks with long histories of increasing dividends. These strategies often start with the requirement that the stocks are constituents of the S&P Dividend Aristocrat index. However, I think there are a few stocks that are worth looking at that are not in the S&P Dividend Aristocrat index.Universal Corporation (UVV) is one such stock. UVV has raised its dividend for much more than 25 years, but isn’t in the S&P Dividend Aristocrat index because it is too small. With a market cap of just less than $1 billion, it is currently in the S&P 400 index. Yet even though it is not a large cap, its yield is an attractive 4.66%.Click to enlarge ... more

Simmons First National (SFNC) Approves $0.19 Per Share Quarterly Cash Dividend - Annual Yield 2.60%

Simmons First National Corporation's (Nasdaq: SFNC) Board of Directors declared a regular $0.19 per share quarterly cash dividend payable January 3, 2011, to shareholders of record December 15, 2010. Simmons First National Corporation is an eight bank financial holding company with community banks in Pine Bluff, Lake Village, Jonesboro, Rogers, Searcy, Russellville, El Dorado and Hot Springs, Arkansas.... more

Great Lakes D&D (GLDD) Declares $0.017 Quarterly Dividend; 0.9% Yield

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (Nasdaq: GLDD) has declared a quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of $0.017 per common share, $0.068 annualized. The dividend is to be paid on December 17, 2010 to the holders of record of common stock of the Company at the close of business on December 10, 2010. The ex-dividend date is December 8, 2010. Yield on the dividend is 0.9%.... more

Alliance Financial (ALNC) Declares $0.30 Quarterly Dividend; 4% Yield

Alliance Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: ALNC) has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.30 per common share, $1.20 annualized. The dividend is payable on January 3, 2011 to shareholders of record on December 20, 2010. The ex-dividend date is December 16, 2010. Yield on the dividend is 4.0%.... more

TJX (TJX) Declares $0.15 Quarterly Dividend; 1.3% Yield

The TJX Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TJX) today announced the declaration of a quarterly dividend on its common stock of $0.15 per share, $0.60 annualized. The dividend is payable March 3, 2011, to shareholders of record on February 10, 2011. The ex-dividend date is February 8, 2011. Yield on the dividend is 1.3%.... more