Buy a fixed-rate bond, and your income stream is constant. Buy a dividend-paying stock, and there's always the chance that the distribution will grow as the company's prospects improve. That's the double bonus of companies that raise their payouts. It's more money for the shareholders, and it may very well be a better company with stronger fundamentals, too.
Let's take a closer look at four of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week.
Lennar
Life may be like a box of chocolates for Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory
Air conditioner specialist Watsco
Chicken processor Sanderson Farms
Subscribers to our Income Investor newsletter can appreciate companies that are sending more and more money to their investors. Analyst Mathew Emmert has often singled out companies that are committed to growing their distributions with market-thumping results.
Want to see what Mathew's liking these days? Go ahead and give his newsletter service a shot with a 30-day trial subscription. Who knows? Maybe the next thing that will get 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 mentioned in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.