Picking the right dividend stocks is subtle though, and requires, ironically, a fixed-income mind-set. That’s because finding stocks that pay consistent cash dividends is very much like picking bonds that will continue to pay their coupon, and such skills are not usually in an equity analyst’s wheelhouse. While equity analysts may judge a company’s willingness to pay, a bond analyst looks at a company’s ability to pay.

When looking for a few good dividend payers, I look for companies that have the predictable revenues and simple business plans. Companies cannot pay out dividends unless they have solid cash flows, and solid cash flows come from strong dependable revenues. If I can understand how the company makes money and the future revenues are easy to model, then I have a sense of the cash flows that would support the dividend payout.

Source: Forbes

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Summary only...

The 10 large-cap stocks rated A-minus or higher by TheStreet Ratings with the highest dividend yields are all trading close to consensus price targets, but that's no surprise with such solid financials and rich dividend yields.

Starting with companies with market capitalizations exceeding $5 billion rated A-minus (strong buy) or higher by TheStreet Ratings, we pared down the group to the 10 stocks with the highest forward dividend yields, based on the most recent quarterly payout. Not surprisingly, electric utilities and energy service companies dominate the list.

Source: TheStreet.com

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Summary only...

Academic evidence shows that dividend stocks outperform. But companies that have raised their dividends do especially well -- and companies that are about to raise their dividends do better still.

Find these the hard way, by sweating through financial statements and guessing who'll raise next, or take Motley Fool Income Investor advisor James Early's suggestion: Simply find consistent raisers and latch on. Your options, Fool, are many: Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), 3M (NYSE: MMM), and Cincinnati Financial (Nasdaq: CINF) have raised payouts for 50 years or more. A newer -- but still consistent -- company is Magellan Midstream Partners (NYSE: MMP).

Source: Motley Fool

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Summary only...

Paying for college is expensive. It takes great investments to provide the growth and income you need to be able to afford it. As long as you make those investments and get started early, though, you can get your kids through college without ending up in the poorhouse. As with any investment goal, the best portfolio for college savings acknowledges the time frame you have to invest as well as the competing considerations of risk and reward that you have to weigh. If you start early, then you may have 15 to 20 years before you need to worry about exhausting your college fund, giving you maximum flexibility to invest.

More than anything, dividend-paying stocks do what other investments don't: show you the money, quarter in and quarter out. The best long-term plays combine a good yield with great ongoing dividend growth. Chevron is a great example of such a stock. Paying 3.5% now, Chevron has increased its dividend at a 10% clip over the past five years, and has a 19-year history of hiking its payouts every year. Procter & Gamble has an even more impressive track record, with 56 straight years of higher dividends and around 12% annual dividend growth since 2005 to go with its 3% yield. Alternatively, a dividend ETF can help with this part of your college savings. Vanguard Dividend Appreciation pursues stocks like Chevron and P&G among dozens of others. It's a simple way to get broad dividend stock exposure.

Source: MSNBC

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Summary only...

Dividends are key to building wealth in the stock market, as they make up a majority of investors returns. Two strong dividend paying stocks are in the manufacturing sector, Caterpillar (CAT) and Deere & Co. (DE). Both of these names are familiar to investors, as we see and use many of their products.

Caterpillar and Deere have been growing like weeds, especially in Latin America and China, where demand for their products is ever growing. Just last month, Caterpillar reported its worldwide machine sales grew 37% in August, led by surging sales in Latin and surprisingly, North America. Deere & Co. is in a similar position, as its products are in heavy demand, as emerging markets continue to grow at fast clips, and North America experiences a slow but steady turnaround. Deere is seeing particular weakness in the European market, as it noted in its last earnings report.

Source: Benzinga

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Summary only...

A pessimistic view held by many is that dividends are paid only by those corporations who could not find beneficial capital budgeting projects which would increase the value of the firm. As a result these companies would provide cash distributions to their shareholders rather than invest back into themselves. Contrary to this minority view, high growth technology companies have began to implement a dividend policy. With billions of cash on their balance sheet, companies like Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO) are able to accomplish both - company growth and dividend payouts.

However, while tech companies offer an attractive investment alternative for income seeking investors, many high-quality dividend-paying Canadian stocks unfortunately could slide under the radar. While energy trusts, such as Penn West Energy Trusts (NYSE:PWE) and Enerplus Resource Fund (NYSE:ERF), among others, are the best known Canadian entities to pay high yields, other alternatives exist as well.

Source: Investopedia

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Summary only...

Over the miserable past decade for stocks, there was a corner of the market where investors stood a better chance of finding winners. What corner was that? Given the title of this article, you can probably guess that the correct answer is "dividend stocks."

With that in mind, I've been exploring the world of dividend stocks a bit more closely, first by breaking up the S&P 500 to figure out where dividend stocks hide out in the various S&P industries. I then homed in on the historical performance of high-yield stocks and companies that had super-fast dividend growth. So what exactly are yields and growth rates that are not too high, not too low, but just right? That's certainly subject to debate, but for my purposes I grabbed all the stocks that had yields from 2.5% to 6% and three-year annualized dividend growth rates of 5% to 20%.

Source: Motley Fool

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Summary only...

Looking for earnings in all the wrong places -- like CDs, annuities and cash -- we would be wise to consider the dividend yields taking place right under our noses. Our record $9 trillion sitting in cash earning nothing right now might be better put to use in any number of companies paying out a strong dividend yield. We tend to forget that dividends, reinvested over time, represent one quarter of the compounding gains we can expect from a typical mix of stock investments.

Dividends are currently taxed at only 15 percent at the federal level. Better yet, in a retirement plan, the tax on them is deferred until a retiree starts nibbling away at the account to support an eccentric personal retirement lifestyle. In some cases, dividends alone might be enough to meet the "minimum distribution requirement" (3-4 percent) -- the amount that must be spent from retirement plans starting at age 70 and a half.

Source: The Oakland Tribune

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Summary only...

At the risk of spoiling the surprise for those who haven't been following along, high-yield stocks have actually performed quite well in the past -- at least when it comes to overall investor returns. However, when it came to dividend growth, I found that many high-yielding stocks ended up seeing more dividend cuts than gains. Do the dividends of stocks with lower yields but higher dividend growth rates avoid a similar fate? I figured I'd have to dig in to find out.

To take a closer look at what we might be able to expect from companies that have cranked up dividend growth, I looked back to the year 2000. Specifically, I took the 500 largest companies that had a dividend payout ratio of 10% or more for 1999, and then grabbed the 25 that had the fastest dividend growth over the preceding three years. The stocks in this group had a much lower starting yield than the high yielders that I looked at last week, but those dividends fared much better than those of the high yielders. While this group grew dividends by nearly 180% between 1999 and today, the other group saw dividends shrink by 25% on average.

Source: Motley Fool

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Summary only...

Targeting equities with high dividends has been attractive for some time, but what began as a short-term defensive strategy for some institutional investors fearful over falling bond returns is turning into a flood. Promises by the Federal Reserve and its peers to keep monetary policy relaxed will keep debt and cash yields low, making the returns on dividends richer than hugging benchmark indexes or buying corporate bonds of the same companies.

"We like dividend-paying stocks. The market may be returning to a time in which dividend yields become more important than price to earnings ratios," Linda Duessel, Federated's equity strategist, said in a client note. And there is more reason to by shares than credit. Any rise in government bond yields will hurt corporate bonds, whose total returns this year have been driven mainly by a fall in absolute yield levels thanks to rallying government bonds. Investors should be mindful, however, that fluctuations in underlying stock prices can easily wipe out gains from dividend.

Source: ForexYard

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Summary only...

Dividend stocks with high yield go far beyond just blue chip utility companies and big pharma picks. Investors can buy dividend stocks in a variety of sectors and in a variety of sizes. And one particular segment of the dividend stock universe that has become popular as of late are small cap dividend stocks with high yield.

Small cap stocks are in focus right now as the market starts September on a very bullish note. That’s because growth stock investors think that if a recovery takes root, smaller stocks will be best suited to ride the updraft to profits. But dividend stocks remain in favor with more conservative types, since the guaranteed payout from these stocks provides stability. Why not get the best of both worlds with small-cap stocks that could ride the recover buy still payout plump dividends?

Source: InvestorPlace

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Summary only...

Income investors can get caught up in yields. But something else could make just as big a difference to long-term returns: dividend growth. That's because dividend growth can make lower-yielding stocks into big income producers over time. Take a look below at the income streams from a stock yielding 7% but not growing dividends, versus a 5% yielder that hikes payments 10% every year. In just five years, that 5% yield would actually be worth more than the 7% yield. And just two years later, the income stream would grow to be 27% more than the stock yielding 7%.

Buying stocks that increase dividends allows you to take advantage of one of the most powerful tools in investors' arsenal -- the wealth-building effect of compounding. And consistent dividend growth is like jet fuel for the compounding engine. But there are more advantages to companies able to consistently grow dividend payments. One often overlooked "plus" is that they tend to be safer investments. Dividends are a litmus test of a company's financial strength. Only companies able to increase earnings through good times and bad will commit to consistently raising dividends. And these are the types of businesses that tend to see more stability in their shares.

Source: TheStreet.com

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Summary only...

Two main theories about the global economy dominate these days: 1) We’re headed for a double-dip recession, and 2) things are getting better at a thick, syrupy pace. I subscribe to the slow-as-molasses rebound view. While I don’t rule out another European debt crisis, the worsening of the U.S. home market and unemployment or any other calamity, things are slowly getting better. It’s time to start investing in stocks again.

When there’s so much conflicting news in the business headlines, I tend to listen to influential institutional investors like Dan Farley, who manages more than $190 billion for Boston-based State Street Global Investors. “Right now, we’re in a stable but shallow recovery mode,” Farley said. “Corporate cash is at a record high of 50 years, and equities have room to grow. Banks are no longer tightening loan requirements and starting to lend; companies are starting to borrow. Hiring plans, inflation and durable goods orders are likely to pick up until (factory) capacity utilization picks up.”

Source: True/Slant

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Summary only...

Interest and dividends paid from investments are important parts of the investment's total returns. These yields come in many forms, sizes and taxable statuses. Yields can be a large contributor to total return from a bond, or contribute a much smaller percentage to total return in a stock, mutual fund or ETF.

Investing for yields has often been called the "widows and orphans" strategy, with visions of little old ladies clipping coupons at their banks. While many investors' strategies are constructed solely to provide income, long-term investors who spend a little time can significantly increase their total return by capturing higher yields and benefit from potential upsides of investments. While most dividend and interest income is taxable, if the actual yield is high enough to outweigh the tax costs, or the upside potential for growth or conversion is foreseeable, these strategies are worth a look. Unlike the buy-and-hold ladder-type strategies utilizing low-risk bonds, these strategies require an active interest and effort, but the long-term benefits are worth the work.

Source: Globe and Mail

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Summary only...

Fidelity Investments and Vanguard Group manage the two largest mutual funds that buy shares of large growth companies with rising dividends, but they couldn't be more different. Fidelity's top picks are technology companies, including Apple(AAPL), Cisco(CSCO) and Hewlett-Packard(HPQ). Vanguard plays it safe with consumer staples such as Pepsi(PEP), Procter & Gamble(PG) and Johnson & Johnson(JNJ).

The $7.2 billion Fidelity Dividend Growth Fund(FDGFX), which holds 538 companies, is tilted toward an improving economy. Its largest industry weighting is technology, at 17.9% of assets, versus the Vanguard Dividend Growth Fund's(VDIGX) 6%. Financial firms comprise 17.6% of the Fidelity fund, compared with 7.5% for Vanguard, which has assets of $3.4 billion. The Vanguard fund, which holds 47 companies and shadows the Dividend Achievers Select Index, has conservative sector allocations, with consumer staples at 17.2% and health care at 16.7%. Still, its biggest position, at 3.6%, is Automatic Data Processing(ADP).

Source: TheStreet.com

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Summary only...

Last month, health care giant Johnson & Johnson [Ticker: JNJ] offered investors $550 million in 10-year notes yielding 2.95 percent. Should squeamish investors have joined the mass exodus from the stock market to the bond market and bought the Johnson & Johnson debt? Or should they have invested in the company's stock? Based on the stock price at the time of debt offering -- about $58 -- and Johnson & Johnson's quarterly dividend of 54 cents, the stock would have given investors a yield of about 3.7 percent, 25 percent more than the yield on the bond.

In more normal times, most investors would pick the stock, counting on not only the higher yield but an additional return based on the likely prospect that the stock price would rise over the next decade. But these are anything but normal times. Investors took $16 billion out of stock funds in June and July while putting $50 billion into fixed-income funds over the same period, according to the Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund industry trade group. "It just shows you how risk-averse investors have become over the last two years," Mr. Frankola said.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Summary only...

Interest and dividends paid from investments are important parts of the investment's total returns. These yields come in many forms, sizes and taxable statuses. Yields can be a large contributor to total return from a bond, or contribute a much smaller percentage to total return in a stock, mutual fund or ETF.

Investing for yields has often been called the "widows and orphans" strategy, with visions of little old ladies clipping coupons at their banks. While many investors' strategies are constructed solely to provide income, long-term investors who spend a little time can significantly increase their total return by capturing higher yields and benefit from potential upsides of investments. While most dividend and interest income is taxable, if the actual yield is high enough to outweigh the tax costs, or the upside potential for growth or conversion is foreseeable, these strategies are worth a look. Unlike the buy-and-hold ladder-type strategies utilizing low-risk bonds, these strategies require an active interest and effort, but the long-term benefits are worth the work.

Source: Investopedia

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Summary only...

Had you invested equally among each of the 30 stocks that currently comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average, from September 2000 to September 2010, your portfolio would have returned 3.15% annually. Had you invested equally among the 42 stocks that currently comprise the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats -- an index composed of large-cap S&P 500 companies that have increased dividends for 25 consecutive years -- you would have enjoyed a 8.1% annual return.

n the past we've attempted to select a small portfolio of Dow stocks intended to outperform the collective future performance of the 20 best-performing Dow components. Using the same criteria -- with two new additions -- we've narrowed our universe of Dividend Aristocrats to 10 stocks, each with a reasonable chance of outperforming the composite index: 1.) Each stock must have a liability-adjusted cash flow yield** greater than the yield of a 10-year U.S. Treasury note. 2.) Each stock must have a return on invested capital greater than 10% (using 10-year historical 3.) Each stock must show a positive total return (including dividends) over the past 10 years.

Source: TheStreet.com

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Summary only...

Like more and more folks, I love dividend stocks these days, especially in my IRA. Good dividend stocks are a great way to ensure some returns during uncertain times. But the truth is, even high-yielding dividend stocks don't generally yield more than 7% or so. What if there was a way to boost your returns from your dividend stocks without taking tons of risk?

More and more investors are discovering options, but plenty of folks still feel like they should steer clear. But not all options strategies are risky or hard to understand. Writing covered calls, for instance, is a simple way to increase your returns on relatively stable stocks without exposing yourself to undue risks. What's that mean? Simple: A call option gives the owner the right to buy a stock at a specific price by a specific time. And you can sell options in addition to buying them -- that's called writing an option. If you sell a call option while you own the underlying stock, we say that that option is covered.

Source: The Money Times

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Summary only...

You've probably heard by now that networking giant Cisco Systems(CSCO) has said it plans to initiate a dividend of 1% to 2% for its fiscal year 2011. At an analyst meeting in San Jose, Calif., Cisco CEO John Chambers said the exact amount would be influenced in part by what Congress does with the personal tax rate on dividend income and the corporate tax and repatriate earnings.

Cisco isn't the first big-name tech company to announce it's going to pay a dividend. Currently, tech firms Microsoft(MSFT), Intel(INTC), Oracle(ORCL), Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) and Qualcomm(QCOM) all pay dividends.

Source: TheStreet.com

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Summary only...

Never has there been more uncertainty about taxes than there is today. With taxes of all sorts and sizes slated to rise in less than four months, some investors seem to be on the verge of panic about how to respond to whatever the future may bring. But a more measured approach to adjusting your portfolio for possible tax hikes will serve you much better than just reflexively making major changes to your entire investment strategy.

Some conclude that despite the advantages of strong dividend stocks, a massive move by investors out of them could push their prices lower. Yet there are several reasons to believe that dividend stocks won't be as sensitive to tax-rate changes as many fear. First, if you're like many people, you already hold dividend stocks in a tax-favored account like an IRA to shelter their income from taxation entirely. Second, many companies don't qualify for preferential treatment on their dividends, so their shareholders already pay ordinary rates on the income.

Source: Motley Fool

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Summary only...

Dividend investing has always been a very popular way for shareholders to see a strong return on their investments. And high-yield dividend stocks that consistently pay stipends to investors are very attractive in choppy markets. While many companies today offer their shareholders lucrative dividends, these dividend aristocrats have been doing it for decades.

The following companies all boast a dividend yield of at least 2.4% with several of them returning over 5% of their stock’s price to investors. And best of all, these high yield dividend stocks have delivered these payouts for many years – some of them for more than a century.

Source: InvestorPlace

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Summary only...

The U.S. 10-Year Treasury bond is a safe investment... right? For the most part, yes. The U.S. government -- for all its flaws -- is not likely to go bust tomorrow. But yields have been sliding for nearly 30 years, and we haven't yet seen the bottom. At the same time, bond prices have been climbing in near bubble-like fashion. That means investors are spending more for a lower yield, all in the name of safety.

Investors looking for value in the stock market sometimes discard companies that offer regular dividends. In many cases, these investors would rather see that cash pumped back into the company. But dividend stocks, over the long term, have outperformed non-paying stocks. According to Ned Davis Research and Income Stock Report, "dividend stocks on the S&P 500 generated a total return of 10.19% per year compared to the 4.39% generated from non-dividend stocks" over the past 30 years through November 2009. And the difference between the two has been widening over the past couple years.

Source: Taipan Publishing

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Summary only...

Now if you ask me, I might say that right now smart investors are looking at dividend stocks. But that implies that other investors aren't smart, and I don't want to do that.What I will say, though, is that if you're not already sniffing around dividend-paying stocks, then it's high time you started

Now we have to track down dividend stocks worth owning. Looking at individual stocks one at a time is certainly a possibility, but it can also be very time-consuming considering the sheer number of dividend-paying stocks out there. So what I've done is break up the dividend-paying stocks in the S&P 500 by industry so we can try to narrow down the industries where we may have the best luck. Right off the top, if you're looking for sheer number of companies to choose from, you'll want to turn to the capital goods, energy, and utilities industries. Nearly one-fifth of the S&P 500 is made up of dividend-paying stocks in those sectors.

Source: Motley Fool

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Summary only...

From the income tax to the estate tax, from the alternative minimum tax to levies on capital gains and dividends—plus much more—nearly every area of individual taxes is in limbo. Come January, for example, the top federal rate on dividends could be as low as 15% or, if nothing is done, as high as 40%.

Dividends: The current top rate on qualified dividends (generally, those held longer than 60 days) is 15%. It expires at the end of this year. Unless Congress acts, the top nominal rate on these dividends will revert to the top rate on ordinary income of 39.6%. A temporary extension of current law would leave the 15% top rate in place. Mr. Obama's budget calls for a top tax rate of 20% on dividends, rather than 39.6%. This issue will probably be decided along with income-tax rates. Owners of C-corporations who normally distribute dividends after the new year may want to accelerate them into 2010, and those who don't typically pay a dividend may want to consider it.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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Summary only...

Stocks can and have disappointed investors over painfully long periods. For example, they trailed bonds over a 68-year period that ended 1871, over a two-decade stretch ending in 1949 and over 41 years that ended in early 2009, according to an article published last year in the Journal of Indexes. With 10-year corporate bonds of decent credit quality yielding less than 3%, now might not seem like an ideal time to bet on fixed income. But stock investors can prepare for another lost decade or two by latching onto healthy dividend yields.

Remember the Rule of 72. To get a not-so-rough estimate of how many years it takes an investor to double his money at a given interest rate (or dividend yield), divide the rate into 72. Assuming payments are reinvested and share prices neither rise nor fall, a 4% dividend yield doubles an investor's money in about 18 years. A 5% yield does so in a little over 14 years. A 6% yield – there are a handful of reliable-looking ones out there – is good for a 12-year double.

Source: SmartMoney

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Summary only...

Lots of folks are talking about dividend stocks right now, and with good reason. When stocks' yields outpace those of bonds, as they do now, that's a classic buy signal. Doubly so when the market appears volatile: A stock that pays a dividend that's both high and sustainable will reward you even when the market is going south. At moments when the market seems like it could take a big swing down, loading up on dividend stocks is an appealing move.

n fact, if you choose to reinvest that dividend -- and unless you're retired, it's a good idea to do so -- you get a dollar-cost averaging effect when the stock's price is down. That means more shares for you, and more money in your portfolio when the price swings back the other way. Think that might make it easier to put up with Mr. Market's mood swings? Any company can hike dividends once or twice every now and then. But some companies have a long-standing tradition of raising their dividends every year, through good times and bad. These firms make that dividend increase a key part of their overall financial plans.

Source: Motley Fool

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A robust and predictable income is a big concern for retirees. They need to know how to generate enough cash to maintain their lifestyle without exposing their assets to too much risk. Social Security is obviously a key source of steady cash for retirees and some also have a pension, an increasingly rare employer-sponsored retirement plan that pays out like clockwork.

Dividend-Paying Stocks: Unlike bonds, stocks represent ownership and company owners may get regularly-scheduled dividends. Not all companies pay dividends, though, and dividends can be stopped if a company gets into financial trouble. Plus, stock prices sometimes plunge. That's why retirees who buy stocks for income should probably limit their exposure to this strategy and stick with large, very stable companies with a history of paying dividends.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

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Morningstar gave it a try in 2008, when it devised a metric called the “moat” to describe the distance a company puts between itself and its competition. A firm’s moat is a function of several variables, including its size, innovative technology, patent protection and the difficulty consumers have switching to a competitor – all relative to the other companies in the sector. Stocks with a wide moat have a significant competitive advantage over their peers.

Look at the context. “No-moat companies haven't built sustainable competitive advantages, so they are subject to the whims of the broader market,” writes Morningtar.com editor Jeremy Glaser. “Therefore when the outlook for the economy looked bright, so did the outlook for these firms pushing their stock prices higher.” Those companies with wider moats are more stable, and although they’re exposed to economic conditions, their cash flows see less fluctuation as conditions change, he says. Glaser says that stability held their shares back relative to their competitors because once conditions improved, investors chased higher growth. According to Morningstar analysts, wide-moat stocks (which are the stables of wide-moat funds) have been considerably undervalued. (The analysts estimated in August that wide-moat stocks were 14% undervalued compared with 7% for narrow-moat firms and 3% for no-moat companies.)

Source: SmaryMoney

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Dow 10,000. The market closed above this key level for the first time on March 29, 1999. Richard Grasso, then the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani broke out the Dow 10,000 hats. Now, more than a decade later the Dow sits at 10,463. Given the lack of performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, many investors might think this is the last place to look for solid investments.

So, the Dow hasn’t moved in 10 years and treasury yields continue the descent that started in the early 80’s. The lack of Dow performance has created an opportunity to buy blue chip companies that yield higher than treasuries and have potential upside in the stock prices. Of the 30 companies in the Dow, the 10 below represent the top dividend yielding stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average with earnings yields in excess of the 10 year treasury yield that are not overly levered. We sorted the companies by dividend yield and highlight some of the key trends for each company that investors may want to consider.

Source: Forbes

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Can you make good returns in a lousy market? If you believe a few respected money managers, there's opportunity aplenty in stocks now. If you find that surprising, wait until you hear where they think the bargains lurk: big blue chips that almost always fetch premium prices. Legendary bear Jeremy Grantham of GMO LLC in Boston says the U.S. faces "seven lean years" of meager growth, but he has been pounding the table about blue chip bargains with big dividends. Steven Romick of FPA Crescent predicts rising taxes and an economic malaise but is singing the praises about "bigger is better" stocks now, too.

Blue chips are always in the news. They're widely owned by pension funds and by individual investors in index funds, and heavily covered by Wall Street analysts. They're the companies that sell beer and medicine. They're the banks where people put their money. They make tractors and computer software. And they typically trade at premium prices, so sometimes are shunned by contrarians like the three above who have been bearish when others are bullish.

Source: Just News

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Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) will institute its first dividend during its current fiscal year, Chief Executive John Chambers said Tuesday, with a yield likely between 1% and 2% as the networking giant begins to return its hefty cash holdings to shareholders. Chambers--who has said it was a matter of when, not if, Cisco would begin paying a dividend--made the disclosure Tuesday during a presentation with analysts.

Chambers said the size and timing of the dividend will be determined in the coming months, and will be influenced by such factors as the U.S. government's decision on how to tax dividends going forward. Cisco's fiscal year started Aug. 1. A yield of 1% to 2% would put Cisco's payout in the higher-end of tech giants. Intel Corp.'s (INTC) dividend yields 3.4%, the highest among the major tech companies, while yields on Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) are under 1%.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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We asked Ian Riach, manager of the Bissett Multinational Growth Fund, to discuss some of his top dividend picks, focusing on those that are likely to increase their payouts. When choosing stocks, Mr. Riach starts by screening for dividend-paying companies that generate at least 20 per cent of their revenue from outside their home country. He then ranks the companies based on dividend yield (the higher the better), payout ratio (the lower the better) and the number of dividend increases over the past five and 10 years (the higher the better).

“If a company has consistently increased its dividend over a number of years, has a decent yield and a low payout ratio, that, to me, indicates – and we’ve done some back-testing on this – that the dividend is sustainable, that they should keep paying it and they should keep growing it,” he says. If a stock passes the initial tests, Mr. Riach then digs into the company’s fundamentals before adding it to his fund.

Source: Globe and Mail

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Google “dividend investor” and you’ll see immediately a sponsored link from consumer goods giant Proctor & Gamble Inc. that reads: Uninterrupted dividends since 1890. 53 straight years of increases. That’s one enviable track record and no doubt an effective advertising slogan. But even more than that, it is a sobering reminder to today’s yield-hungry investors that not all dividend stocks are created equal.

“It’s just not enough to look at the current yield,” said Robert Floyd, lead manager at R.A. Floyd Capital Management Inc. in Mississauga. “You also need to look at the potential growth of the dividend down the line. That means looking at the balance sheet, the cash flow, the debt load of the underlying company and assessing any other concerns that might restrict its ability to pay out down the line.”

Source: Financial Post

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Dividend stocks are all the rage among investors. Yet while their unique combination of potential future growth and attractive current income justifies investors' interest in them, they're not bulletproof -- and using risky investing strategies to try to take advantage of high dividend yields can come back to bite you.

Right now, dividend-seeking investors find themselves in a situation many have never faced before. Interest rates on bonds and other fixed-income investments are at historic lows. In fact, the disparity is so wide that I've started to see a new strategy thrown around. It's a variation on what's known as a carry trade, where you borrow money at low rates in order to buy investments that are paying a higher rate. In a nutshell, here's how it works: Go to your broker and take out a margin loan. Use the money to invest in high-yield dividend stocks. With some brokers offering margin loan rates below 2%, you can pocket some nice profits just based on the dividend income you receive every quarter.

Source: Motley Fool

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In the investment community, the Standard and Poors 500 Index (S&P 500) is the most common benchmark representing the stock market as a whole. This is why S&P 500 Index funds are a favorite among passive ETF investors. Unfortunately, the S&P 500 as a whole has a low dividend yield (only around 2%). Therefore, if you are an income investor who is counting on a reliable stream of dividend payments, the S&P 500's low yield might not be a good core holding for you.

However, if you sift through the index's 500 component stocks, you will notice that a number of them are high-yielding, consistent dividend payers. Furthermore, for the more risk-averse, there also a number of blue chips in the index with solid dividend yields. Dividends matter. After all, a dividend check can help investors sleep easily because it shows that the company has a stable capacity to make money. Best of all, the cash in your hand is proof that the earnings are really there, and you can reinvest or spend them as you see fit.

Source: Invesopedia

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Throughout much of the past several decades, investors have had a decision to make when considering how to allocate their money. Bonds typically provided higher yields than stocks, but with most bonds, the interest payments you receive represented the only return you could expect from your investment. Meanwhile, if you wanted to have a chance at capital appreciation, investing in stocks usually meant accepting a lower dividend yield in exchange.

I don't think dividend yields will stay this far above bond yields very long. That may happen due to rising stock prices that will reduce dividend yields, or falling bond prices that will close the gap between yields on bonds and stocks. Whichever way that happens, though, dividend stocks look like a much better buy than bonds right now. Even with such high levels of uncertainty about the economy, attractive yields on dividend stocks give them a margin of safety you simply don't have with bonds right now. If you still have a big portion of your money in the bond market, take a closer look at dividend stocks and see if they might give you a better way to achieve your long-term financial goals.

Source: Motley Fool

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For a discussion about equities, their future and related issues, including the impending expiration of the dividend tax cut that was enacted in 2003, we turned to Duncan Richardson, executive vice president and chief equity investment officer at Eaton Vance.

Over the long run, dividend-investing strategies, with or without tax implications to investors, have outperformed in almost all periods and in almost all countries. Over short periods, they haven't necessarily outperformed. So it doesn't really change from that respect. We have always factored dividend analysis into our stock-picking and portfolio construction. A careful study of a company's dividend payouts and policy can tell you a lot about the quality and sustainability of a company's earnings.

Source: SmartMoney.com

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There's new hope for retirees looking for a solid return on their money. It's certainly been a challenge to find in this economy. Retirees and others looking for more income without undue risk may want to take a fresh look at an old standby: dividend stocks.

Dividends are regaining their strength after falling from favor when companies cut them during the recession. More than a third of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 have increased quarterly payouts this year and just three have cut them - a return to pre-meltdown levels and a vote of confidence in the future.

Source: San Gabriel Tribune

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Deutsche Bank analyst Binky Chadha sees the current environment in the market as being ideal for large increases in payouts -- especially buybacks -- as companies are seeing high levels of cash flows. The report from Deutsche Bank points out that analysts are expecting dividends at financial firms to increase by $30 billion or 100 percent once definitive capital requirements are set.

“Operating cash flow at over $1 trillion continues to run strong and is already at its previous peak but capex and payouts were cut 25 percent and 53 percent, respectively, from 2008 peak levels. As a result, corporates must increase spending by $250 billion to $300 billion annually on capex & payouts just to keep their cash mountains from growing further. The current spending pattern seems to be tracking the 2003-2004 period in which firms also significantly ramped up payouts and capex.”

Source: StreetInsider.com

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The investment thesis behind the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats -- an index composed of large-cap S&P 500 companies that have increased dividends for 25 consecutive years -- is simple and effective: Increased dividend payouts will compound over time. For example, a $1,000 investment in a stock yielding 4% -- growing dividend payout 7% annually -- will yield approximately 8% on the original $1,000, 10 years later (assuming no capital appreciation). This concept is known as "yield-on-cost."

A cautious investor should use the Dividend Aristocrats index only as a starting point for dividend stock ideas -- paying careful attention to the financial condition and prospects of each company. In the past, we have suggested that income investors periodically subject their portfolio to a "Dividend Acid Test*" -- a pass/fail exam that indicates if a company's dividend payout is covered, in full, by the company's liability adjusted cash flow yield (LACFY).

Source: TheStreet.com

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There have been a plethora of posts about dividend stocks lately. Quite a few have pointed out that many stocks that offer dividends now yield more than Treasuries or corporate bonds. Others tout the advantage of dividends being able to add to total return in a choppy, range-bound market.

Raising dividends, reasonable valuation, not over-priced, not being chased by the momentum crowd -- these are all characteristics that might be attractive to patient investors. And remember, pulling in some income while waiting for the capital gains to arrive is not such a bad strategy.

Source: benzinga

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The importance of investing in dividend-paying stocks should never be underestimated. Not only do these stocks offer a steady stream of income, they also offer the potential for capital gains.

In fact, countless studies demonstrate that dividend-paying stocks outperform non-payers by a wide margin. From 1972 to 2006, dividend-paying stocks returned an average of 10% annually versus 4% for non-dividend payers, according to Ned Davis Research. Going back to 1926, other studies confirm almost half of the S&P 500′s return was due to the dividends paid by the companies in the index. That said, it's tough to find reliable dividend investments in the current market, with industry titans like General Electric and Dow Chemical having cut their dividends in recent years.

Source: Motley Fool

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The economy is dragging. It may be time to look at the next 10-15 years instead of the next 10-15 months. To do this, look no further than companies that pay dividends higher than the return in the credit markets; they're attractive because of record-low interest rates, potential profit growth of 36%, and a slowing economy. According to Bloomberg, US stocks paying dividends are exceeding bond yields more than any time in the last 15 years. In the S&P 500, 68 companies yield more than 3.78%, which happens to be the average rate in the credit markets going back to 1995.

Moreover, stocks seem cheap after companies raised payouts by 6.8% during the second quarter. Bloomberg goes on to report that the last time the number of S&P 500 companies paying dividends above the corporate bond rate approached this level was all the way back in March 2003, which happens to be around the time a new bull market started that saw more major equity averages double.

Source: Minyanville

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There is a reason that most mortgages are paid monthly and not quarterly. Banks are looking for reassurance the payments will continue to come in. In much the same way, many investors find comfort in owning stocks that pay monthly dividends. There are several advantages to receiving dividends each month over the traditional quarterly, semi-annual or annual dividends.

For some, monthly dividend payments are worth seeking out. Personally, I will buy a security that pays monthly dividends if it meets my criteria and it is the best option available, but I prefer quarterly dividends due to the lower administrative burden. The important question is not how often a stock pays its dividend, but can it sustain and grow the dividend.

Source: Dividends Value

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Susan Brunner began investing in the mid-1970s with a 30-year plan to build a portfolio that would let her retire early and indulge in her favourite pastime of reading. “I especially like to read history, but also enjoy economics, investing, science and sci-fi.” In 1999, she was laid off from her job. At first she thought she would have to get another position because, among other things, her son was about to go to college. Then she did some calculations and realized she didn’t have to go back to work. “If you do not work ... and if your income is mostly dividends rather than salary, taxes are a lot less,” she explains.

Her core portfolio is invested in dividend stocks for the long term. “I still have the first two stocks I bought in the 1970s, which were BMO and BCE,” she said. Outside her core portfolio, she has invested in tech and small-cap stocks. She likes companies that are easy to understand and regularly raise their dividends. She also looks for growth in revenue, cash flow and book value.

Source: Globe and Mail

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