Payouts can be sweet. Readers of the Motley Fool Income Investor newsletter can appreciate companies with strong fundamentals and nice yields that are itching to go higher. Companies don't increase their dividends unless they feel confident about their growth. It's a lesson worth learning even for investors who couldn't care less about the quarterly pocket change.
Let's take a closer look at four of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week.
We can start with Time Warner
That's the rub. Time Warner's shares have been stuck in the teens longer than some boy bands. Investors can't seem to appreciate the company's core studio and broadcasting businesses or cope with the perpetual declines in AOL's dial-up realm. So let's see whether this meandering Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation is actually telling us something significant with this half-penny hike. It may have a more upbeat outlook than the market, and that spells opportunity if the company's vision proves true.
Another surprising hiker to those who don't know the company very well is Gannett
Outlandish behavior in a battered sector? Not really. Gannett has made dividend hikes a regular feature for its shareholders. The company has announced higher payouts 38 times since it started paying them out 39 years ago. It's also coupling last week's increase with an ambitious share buyback. How's that for some good news coming out of the news specialist?
Then we have Station Casinos
Boyd and Station Casinos are now yielding 1.6% and 2.1%, respectively. It doesn't seem like much, but it's not supposed to. These companies are trying to send a bigger message to Wall Street. It's not much of a gamble, even if gambling is what they know best.
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? 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. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.