Friday, May 29, 2009

* Dividend Stocks Are 'Slow Good'

For years Heinz Ketchup ran commercials describing their product as 'slow good'. It was an obvious inference to 'so good' and that it was worth waiting on. Investing in dividend stocks in very similar. You certainly won't find sudden wealth on any given day, but over time those compounding dividends will handsomely reward you.

Speaking of the H. J. Heinz Company (HNZ) and dividends, yesterday the company reported results in-line with the analyst consensus estimate and raised its quarterly common stock dividend from $0.415 to $0.42. The current dividend yield based on the new rate is 4.63%.

Below are other companies being 'slow good' to their shareholders by increasing the cash dividends paid:
  • Unum Group (UNM) raised its quarterly dividend by 10% to $0.0825/share, yielding 1.96%
  • PPD, Inc. (PPDI) increased its quarterly dividend by 20% to $0.15/share, yielding 3.05%
  • Monro Muffler (MNRO) boosts its quarterly dividend by 16.7% to $0.07/share, yielding 1.08%
  • Fred's (FRED) quarterly dividend soared by 50% to $0.03/share, yielding 0.90%
  • SUPERVALU (SVU) raised its quarterly dividend by 1.45% to $0.175/share, yielding 4.36% (Analysis)
Rising dividends are good, but to be great you have to do year after year. For companies with a long string of consecutive dividend increases, see this list.

Full Disclosure: No position in the aforementioned companies. See a list of all my income holdings here.
(Photo Credit)

Tags: [FRED] [HNZ] [MNRO] [PPDI] [SVU] [UNM]