4 Stocks That Took a Hike

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz | More Articles
July 28, 2008 | Comments (1)

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.

Readers of the Income Investor newsletter can certainly appreciate that kind of thinking. Let's take a closer look at four of the companies that inched their payouts higher over the past week.

Let's start with Anheuser-Busch (NYSE: BUD ) . The giant brewer is giving its quarterly dividend a 12% boost to $0.37 a share. The company has now raised its disbursements in each of the past 32 years. Set to be acquired by InBev, this should be the last time that the company taps that particular keg.

Fortune Brands (NYSE: FO ) is another buzz booster. The distiller is coming through with a more modest 5% uptick. Investors will now be receiving $0.44 a share from Fortune every three months. The company has jacked up its yield for 12 consecutive years now.

Leading discount broker Charles Schwab (Nasdaq: SCHW ) knows its way around bid-ask spreads, but it's giving shareowners an entirely new spread by propping up its quarterly distributions by 20% to $0.06 a share. The new 1.1% yield may not seem like much, but it's better than the total lack of dividends offered by peers like E*Trade (Nasdaq: ETFC ) and TD Ameritrade (Nasdaq: AMTD ) .

Ethan Allen Interiors (NYSE: ETH ) is another topper. The furniture specialist's new quarterly payout is $0.25 a share, 14% better than its previous rate. Ethan Allen did post a sharp drop in profitability later in the week, but the company is still comfortable with returning more money to its shareholders.

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 that will get hiked will be your interest.

Best Odds in the Universe!
If you're interested in a 98.79% chance at beating the market... and a 70.84% chance at DOUBLING the market's return – Motley Fool Supernova could be just what you're looking for. And get this: We arrived at these odds from 10,000 random back-tested portfolios composed of Motley Fool Co-founder David Gardner's personal stock picks.

It's why David recently handpicked a small team of world-class portfolio managers. You see, he thinks these odds can get even better! And he'd like to prove it to you...

Simply enter your email address. And the answer to the question everybody is asking will be delivered to your inbox!

Anheuser-Busch is a former Motley Fool Inside Value pick. Charles Schwab is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. Try any of our Foolish newsletters today, free for 30 days.

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.

Read/Post Comments (1) | Recommend This Article (5)

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

Report this Comment On July 28, 2008, at 11:18 AM, hanafyka wrote:

What about microchip (mchp)? This company has increased its dividend for TWENTY consecutive quarters!

Add your comment.

Compare Brokers

Fool Disclosure

DocumentId: 693784, ~/Articles/ArticleHandler.aspx, 2/14/2012 6:57:27 PM

Report This Comment

Use this area to report a comment that you believe is in violation of the community guidelines. Our team will review the entry and take any appropriate action.

Sending report...

Today's Market

updated Moments ago Sponsored by:
	DOW	12,878.28	4.24	0.03%
	S&P 500	1,350.50	-1.27	-0.09%
	NASD	2,931.83	0.44	0.02%

Create My Watchlist

Go to My Watchlist

You don't seem to be following any stocks yet!

Better investing starts with a watchlist. Now you can create a personalized watchlist and get immediate access to the personalized information you need to make successful investing decisions.

Data delayed up to 5 minutes