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 Aflac (NYSE: AFL ) .
The insurance giant covering more than 50 million people worldwide is giving its shareholders something to quack about. Aflac's new quarter dividend of $0.33 a share is a 10% improvement over its previous rate.
Takeover speculation fueled a pop in Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO ) , but investors will be better off even if a rumored buyout fails to materialize. Valero is tripling its yield by juicing up its quarterly disbursements to $0.15 a share.
Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM ) ties its payouts to the price of gold, so it isn't a surprise to see its rate climb higher. Newmont's quarterly distributions of $0.35 a share is 17% ahead of where it was a quarter ago and a more impressive 133% pop over the past year. Gold prices have cooled off lately, but even fellow miner Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX ) kicked in with a dividend hike last week.
Finally, we have Spectra Energy (NYSE: SE ) energizing its dividends. The natural gas specialist's new quarterly rate of $0.28 a share is an 8% increase.
"We expect to deliver consistent growth in our annual dividend," CEO Greg Ebel notes in Spectra's announcement.
These companies join limited partnerships Atlas Pipeline Partners (NYSE: APL ) and ONEOK Partners (NYSE: OKS ) 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 My Watchlist.
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