Dividend checks continue to get fatter in Corporate America, as more companies jack up their distribution rates.
Readers of the Income Investor newsletter can certainly appreciate that kind of thinking. Let's take a closer look at some of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week.
Let's start with Disney (NYSE: DIS ) .
The House of Mouse is boosting its annual dividend by 50% to $0.60 a share. It's a bold move for the family entertainment giant that's clearly at the mercy of economic trends. Folks don't go to its theme parks or cruise ships -- and advertisers don't bid up ad blocks on ABC -- if the economy is sputtering.
Ecolab (NYSE: ECL ) is also cleaning up nicely. The provider of water, hygiene, and energy technologies and services is raising its quarterly rate by 14% to $0.20 a share. Ecolab investors should be used to this by now, as the company has now upped its yield for 20 consecutive years.
Toro (NYSE: TTC ) helps keep lawns neat with its mowers and vegetation growing with its irrigation systems. Sprinkling a little fertilizer on its quarterly disbursements -- up 10% to $0.22 a share -- can only help the overall landscape.
Finally we have Wisconsin Energy (NYSE: WEC ) . The Milwaukee-based utility provider of electricity and natural gas is hoping to keep its payouts competitive, targeting a return of 60% of its profits to its shareholders. Last week's move in that direction involved raising its quarterly distributions by 15% to $0.30 a share.
These companies join fluid manager Graco (NYSE: GGG ) and Oklahoma City utility OGE Energy (NYSE: OGE ) in recently jacking up their yields.
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.
If you want to track these stocks to see if and when they hike their payouts again, consider adding them to MyWatchlist.
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