FedEx Corp. (FDX) Declares $0.12 Quarterly Dividend; 0.6% Yield

FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) today declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.12 per share, $0.48 annualized. The dividend is payable October 1, 2010 to stockholders of record at the close of business on September 10, 2010. The ex-dividend date is September 8, 2010. Yield on the dividend is 0.6%.... more

Chemical Financial (CHFC) Declares $0.20 Quarterly Dividend; 4.2% Yield

Chemical Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: CHFC) today announced that the Board of Directors of the Company declared a third quarter 2010 cash dividend on its common stock of $0.20 per share, $0.80 annualized. The third quarter 2010 dividend will be payable on September 17, 2010, to shareholders of record on September 3, 2010. The ex-dividend date is September 1, 2010. Yield on the dividend is 4.2%.... more

Flowers Foods (FLO) Declares $0.20 Quarterly Dividend; 3.1% Yield

Flowers Foods (NYSE: FLO) today announced a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share. This action renews the annual dividend rate of $0.80. The dividend is payable on September 21, 2010, to shareholders of record on September 7, 2010. The ex-dividend date is September 3, 2010. Yield on the dividend is 3.1%.... more

Indiana Community Bancorp (INCB) Declares $0.01 Quarterly Dividend; 0.3% Yield

Indiana Community Bancorp (Nasdaq: INCB) today announced a third quarter dividend of $0.01 per share, $0.04 annualized. The dividend will be paid on October 1, 2010, to all shareholders of record on September 20, 2010. The ex-dividend date is September 18, 2010. Yield on the dividend is 0.3%.... more

Dividend Taxation: 5 Points to Ponder

Beginning January 1, 2011, the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, meaning that dividend taxation could increase. Currently in the U.S, dividend investors enjoy a maximum of 15% taxation on qualified dividends, but this could increase to 39.6% for those in the highest tax bracket if Congress does not act to keep dividend taxation low. Even for most people in the other tax brackets, dividend taxation could increase, but the effects won’t be as dramatic. There are a variety of outcomes that could occur, ranging from the tax cuts being made to stay, or facing a modest bump up to 20% or so, or staying low for those in the lower tax brackets but soaring up high for those in the highest tax brackets, or going high across the tax bracket board. I am not a political analyst or a tax professional,... more

Can Longtime Dividend-Growers Keep Growing?

Growth plays a vital role in dividend investors’ success because stalled growth spells vulnerable dividends. And over many decades the venerable Coca-Cola, along with Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), McDonald’s (MCD), Procter and Gamble (PG) and other ‘too big to succeed’ dividend growers kept growing, ringing up nearly ‘too big to calculate’ total returns. Meanwhile, during the tough ten to fifteen years just past, some of the most familiar dividend-growth titans still grew, averaging 8% to 12% annual total returns along the way, despite supposed headwinds of size, longevity and bags of cash pitched out the window to dividend-hungry shareholders. In addition to MCD and PG, these hall-of-famers include Becton Dickinson (BDX), Clorox (CLX), Chevron (CVX), 3M (MMM) and United... more

Fool Radio Roundtable: Adobe, RIMM, and Consumer-friendly, Dividend Stocks

Motley Fool Money is a one-hour weekly business radio show syndicated to radio stations across America. On our most recent show, host Chris Hill talked with our analysts about some stocks on their radar. You can catch this week’s show online at motleyfoolmoney.com. In this lightly edited transcript, the guys share three stocks on their radar. Chris Hill: Let’s talk about the stocks that are on our radar. Charly Travers, let’s start with you. Charly Travers: I’ve had my eye on Research in Motion (RIMM). Very popular stock, and not in a good way. Their most latest entry into the smartphone market, the Torch, is apparently doing lukewarm sales, so I wouldn’t say it’s the nail in the coffin for the company. It’s a bit premature to come to that conclusion; but all the same, if... more

4 Dividend Stocks Showing You the Money

Dividend checks continue to beef up in corporate America, as more companies jack up their distribution rates. Readers of the Income Investor newsletter can certainly appreciate that kind of thinking. Let’s take a closer look at some of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week.... more

The 7 Highest-Yielding Industrial Conglomerates

Dividend investing is popular again. Investors have taken to heart Jeremy Siegel’s studies, which show that higher-yielding stocks tend to offer greater returns over time than low- or no-yield stocks. The highest dividend yields can be very tantalizing. As long as a stock yielding 15% doesn’t lose value, you’ll make 15% in one year! In more cases than not, however, an astronomical yield is a bad sign for a stock. Since dividend yields and stock prices move in opposite directions, a high yield usually means that investors have begun to worry about the business, and driven down its stock price. However, certain types of companies, such as REITs have to pay out most of their income as dividends, so their yields will be higher than "normal." Dividends are not guaranteed; you need to... more

Bond Investors Got a Fever -- and the Only Prescription Is More Yield

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) recently broke a new record -- but it wasn’t for the strongest Tylenol in history. J&J has now posted the lowest yields ever on a corporate 10-year and 30-year bond -- 2.95% and 4.50% respectively. For comparison’s sake, that’s 21 and 56 basis points more than comparable Treasury bonds. This might be just an extraneous data point, not representative of corporate bonds as a whole. But a host of other companies -- not all necessarily even AA-rated -- have also recently issued bonds at absurdly low yields:... more