LONDON -- Hovering around the 5,678 mark, the FTSE 100 is on a trailing dividend yield of around 3.8%, which isn't bad at all, especially with so much growth opportunity in some depressed sectors.
It really does make sense to go for high-yielding shares in times like these, and today we take a look at three companies from the various FTSE indices that have lifted their dividends this week.
Taylor Wimpey
Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey
Average selling price for the period rose 4.6% to 176,000 pounds, and the firm's operating margin strengthened to 11.4%, from 2011's first-half margin of 8.4%, as operating profit was boosted by 50% to 100.9 million pounds. The news was enough to raise the share price 2.1% to 45 pence.
Rexam
Packaging company Rexam
Despite that, the shares fell 11.6 pence (2.7%) to 423 pence on the announcement. Maybe investors had been expecting more, after the shares had already gained more than 20% over the past 12 months. Forecasts put the shares on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of under 12, falling to 10 for 2013, and dividend forecasts suggest yields of 3.6% and 3.9%, so the shares are not looking overvalued.
Weir
Weir Group
That's not one of the best yields on the market by a long way, but Weir isn't really an income share, and investors who follow the City's consensus recommendation to buy the shares will be doing so in the hope of a share price recovery -- at 1,677 pence, the price is already back up 19% over the June low of 1,397 pence.
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