Company Dividend Hikes

In the beginning of the year, I reviewed my 2005 passive income, mainly from dividend paying stocks I own.

Here is the same list of companies (I still own stock in each) with any quarterly dividend hikes seen in 2006:

	2005 Dividend	206 Dividend	% Increase	Ranking
IBM	$ 0.20	$ 0.30	50%	1
ExxonMobil	$ 0.29	$ 0.32	10%	6
Pfizer	$ 0.19	$ 0.24	26%	2
Bellsouth	$ 0.29	$ 0.29	0%	14
Edison Int.	$ 0.25	$ 0.27	8%	13
Medtronic	$ 0.10	$ 0.11	14%	5
Pepco Energy	$ 0.25	$ 0.26	4%	12
Duke Energy	$ 0.31	$ 0.32	3%	7
Merck	$ 0.38	$ 0.38	0%	3
GE	$ 0.22	$ 0.25	14%	8
Lowes	$ 0.03	$ 0.05	67%	10
P&G	$ 0.28	$ 0.31	11%	9
Chevron	$ 0.45	$ 0.52	16%	11
AnheuserBusch	$ 0.27	$ 0.30	9%	4
		Average	17%

Notes: These are quarterly dividends, Ranking is by current weight in my taxable investment portfolio

All but 2 companies have raised their dividend. Merck, understandably with the Vioxx liability hanging over its head, did not raise its dividend, but I expect that it will resume dividend raises in the next 1-2 years. Bellsouth, also understandably did not raise its dividend as it is in the middle of a merger by AT&T that will net a sizable dividend hike when complete.

The dividend hikes (including the ones that didn't move) were an average of 17% this year - nice!! While you can't read too much into these hikes, companies (like Merck) don't raise dividends when they aren't confident they can pay them.

I can't complain about these sizable dividend hikes!

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Comments (5)

DATE: 12:30 AM
Great blog!!! What is your opinion on treasury bills? Currently the interest rate is ~5%. Any advantage of HSBC/Emigrant direct accounts over these T-Bills? Looking forward to your reply.

Posted by Anand | September 10, 2006 3:17 PM

DATE: 10:05 AM
Good question - never paid much attention to Treasury bills, but probably need to look more into them - I would say if they are equilavent to online savings rates then it may make sense to use them with the excemption from state income tax.

Posted by 2million | September 10, 2006 3:17 PM

DATE: 9:29 AM
Good post. Thanks for sharing your divy increases.I think this type of investing would ease traders concers on the current market volatility provided they go in with a "buy and hold" mentality.So what if the stock price fluctuates every week? You're still getting paid every quarter, and with your list of increases, chances are you'll get paid more next year.-GrantTheCornerOfficeBlog.com

Posted by Grant | September 10, 2006 3:17 PM

DATE: 8:35 PM
2m, I am trying to figure out dividend paying investments and would be interested in hearing more about how you came to your decisions wrt the ones you bought.

Posted by finance girl | September 10, 2006 3:17 PM

DATE: 10:18 PM
Just wondering if you keep all your dividend paying investments in sharebuilder or drips? I know you had a post earlier whether drips/sharebuilder are/is better but just wondering if you just use sharebuilder for the simplicity to manage it all?

Posted by mr p | September 10, 2006 3:17 PM