With the holidays upon us, this week was a fairly quiet one for dividend increases as we approach the end of the year. This week’s update includes 10 companies announcing dividend increases, with 2 notable increases of 150% over their previous payout!
For the investor looking for a safe “blue chip” holding, this week’s holiday gift was AT&T (ticker: T) which raised it’s annual dividend by $.04 to $1.76/share for a yield of 5.89%.
Considering that most CD and bank savings accounts are paying 1% or less – AT&T may offer a good alternative. In recent quarters there has been some concern that with AT&T’s landline revenues continuing to disappear, perhaps the AT&T dividend could be at risk – but with the increase this week, those fears have been put to rest, at least for the time being.
When investing for income, one of the most important factors to consider, besides the ongoing safety of the dividend payout, is to look for those companies that are continuing to grow their dividend stream. This week offers two potential opportunities for the investor looking to add dividend growth.
Village Supermarket (ticker: VLGEA) and Spreadtrum Communications (ticker: SPRD) which both raised their quarterly payout by a jaw dropping 150%. Village Supermarket now pays $1.00/share and yields 3.45% while Spreastrum Communications pays $.40/share with a new yield of 1.91%.
As always, I have provided a link below to the Google document online spreadsheet with all of the details of this week’s announcements. I have also highlighted the two top two stocks with the highest dividend increase in green as well as highlighting the stock with the highest overall yield in yellow.
I should caution you as always, that because a stock is highlighted does not mean you should add it to a buy list, my intent is to simply point out those stocks with unique characteristics for your review.
One other notable name in this week’s roundup is Norwood Financial (ticker: NWFL).Norwood is now yielding 4.43% after it’s dividend increase to $1.20/share. What caught my eye about Norwood was it’s 141 years of successful business operations.
It’s no secret that I’ve added some riskier positions to the DDI portfolio, but I believe part of the “secret sauce” is continually finding niche companies that have remained profitable for long periods of time (50 years or longer ideally) that also offer ongoing dividend growth.
The DDI portfolio remains unchanged this week as none of the companies reporting a dividend increase are currently members of the portfolio.