4 Stocks That Took a Hike

I love to kick off the new trading week by taking a quick peek at companies that have just hiked their dividends. It's not just about the money; a company that is easing up on its pocketbook probably has improving fundamentals to back up that generosity.

Let's take a closer look at four of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week.

We can start with First Busey (Nasdaq: BUSE  ) . (No relation to the actor Gary Busey, and much more predictable.) Investors will now be receiving $0.23 a share every three months, a huge 44% boost from its recent $0.16 per share payout. The financial-services specialist has now increased its quarterly dividend rate higher for 15 consecutive years.

Camden National (AMEX: CAC  ) was another banker facilitating a larger dividend withdrawal. The Maine-based institution grew its quarterly payout by a pair of pennies to $0.24 a share.

Next on the list is Frontier Financial (Nasdaq: FTBK  ) . We haven't written about Frontier in nearly two years, but there's something special about this financial-services company. Its latest quarterly dividend -- going up by half a penny to $0.155 a share -- may not seem like much, butt Frontier has managed to raise its dividend every single quarter since initiating its policy in 1999.

Then we have LTC Properties (NYSE: LTC  ) . The real estate investment trust that invests in long-term health-care provider properties grew its monthly distribution -- yes, monthly -- by 4% to $0.125. That now finds the company sporting a healthy 5.5% yield.

Subscribers to the Income Investor newsletter can appreciate the companies sending more and more money to their investors. The newsletter singles out companies that are committed to growing their distributions with market-thumping results.

Want to see what is being recommended these days? Go ahead and give the newsletter service a shot with a 30-day trial subscription. Who knows? Maybe the next thing hiked will be your interest.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz pays attention to yield signs. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.