Dividends can enrich you over time, but they make an even louder statement in the present. A company's willingness to open its wallet is a fair indicator of its confidence about its prospects over the next few quarters.
Let's take a closer look at four of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week.
We'll start with Cryptologic (NASDAQ:CRYP). After crushing the market for the third quarter in a row, the poker gaming enabler went "all in" with its payout, growing its dividend by 71%. It didn't hurt that the company also renewed some key contracts and even signed on to run an online casino for Playboy (NYSE:PLA). The Motley Fool Hidden Gems-recommended company has served investors well, appreciating by nearly 20% since being singled out by Bill Mann last year.
Another Hidden Gems pick that upped the ante was Mine Safety Appliances (NYSE:MSA). Shares have soared 148% higher since Tom Gardner selected the company nearly three years ago. The maker of things like gas masks and thermal imaging cameras bumped up its quarterly dividend to $0.18 a share, a 29% improvement. The news came a day after Mine Safety posted results that came in below market expectations. That's OK -- Mine Safety's dividend is currently only a small percentage of its profits.
La-Z-Boy (NYSE:LZB), a Motley Fool Income Investor pick, was another hiker. It may seem ironic that a company that specializes in recliners is treating investors to an inclining yield. But it's even more surprising that a company that's mostly made news for all of the wrong reasons is feeling confident enough to boost its quarterly dividend. How bad have things gotten at La-Z-Boy? Last month, the company issued a press release where the headline read -- no joke -- "La-Z-Boy Introduces Reorganized Management Team of Passionate Leaders." Will shareholders start getting passionate? If raising its dividend from $0.11 to $0.12 per share is indicative of the company's faith in its organizational shuffle, it might just be the case.
Mirroring La-Z-Boy's dividend hike exactly, Scripps' (NYSE:SSP) move was no less surprising. The newspaper publisher, with 20 dailies reaching 1.2 million subscribers, seems an unlikely candidate to loosen its purse strings. The print publishing world has struggled in recent years as folks turn to online sources for information. Thankfully, Scripps also has online and television interests, too. Shareholders will now be getting a dozen cents per share every three months, to help remind them that old-school media stocks aren't entirely dead.
Subscribers to our Income Investor newsletter can appreciate the companies 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 likes these days? Give his newsletter service a shot with a 30-day trial subscription. Who knows? Maybe the next thing to 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. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.
