Dividend Stock News

Dividends, dividends, dividends…

• Heritage Oaks Bancorp Declares 5% Stock Dividend
• Global Marine Ltd. Declares a Stock Dividend
• Forest City Declares Quarterly Dividend
• Spirit Finance Declares First Quarter Dividend
• First South Bancorp Boosts Dividend

The Motley Fool answers some reader questions:

QHow can I tell if a company pays a dividend?

- D.B., St. Louis

A: You can call the company and ask, or look it up online or in newspaper stock listings. Instead of the dividend itself, many stock listings often include the dividend yield, which is the percentage of the current stock price being paid out annually in dividends. If there’s a yield, it means there’s a dividend.

Barring a collapse in real estate prices, REITs are still the best place for high dividend yields

The real reason for the decline in REIT prices is the sell-off by institutional investors. Institutions, particularly mutual funds, are said to be shedding REITs, an action which is the cause and not the effect of REIT price declines. A stock falls in price for one reason — sales of that stock. Institutions get nervous when a stock has had a long run-up and they take their money and run.

Individual investors don’t have to do that. They should buy REITs for their attractive dividend yields, not their price appreciation,

More commentary on dividends.

Some news on the dividend front

• GM could cut dividend in nod to union, bondholders
• Albertsons Declares Quarterly Dividend
• Pepsi Bottling Ups Dividend by 60 Percent
• Deutsche Bank to boost dividend
• Intel declares quarterly dividend

Dividends are cool and good investments

Many people perceive dividend-paying stocks as boring investments with low growth potential, or they think that such stocks are meant exclusively for investors approaching retirement. Even though there’s every reason that your father or grandfather should own these stocks, too, nothing could be further from the truth that they should be the only ones interested.

We have been lazy here at Dividend Stock News, so here some news

• Alaska Communications Systems Increases Dividend; ACS Increases Dividend by 8%
• Admiral Surprises with Special Dividend
• Lowe’s Companies, Inc. Declares Cash Dividend
• Todd Shipyards Corporation Announces Dividend
• Monsanto Company Declares Quarterly Dividend
• Bilfinger Aims to Raise Annual Dividend 54%, Won’t Repeat Bonus

Be cautious when investing in high-dividend yield REITs:

If you’re investing in real estate investment trusts, or REITs, you may have similar forebodings. And that’s a good thing. Unless you’re a long-term investor out for dividend income, a REIT fund might be a poor place to be right now.

The Reuters Dividend Ratio report is a great resource to separate the good from the bad

If income is an important part of your investment goal, you will need to focus on the tradeoff between high current yield and high rates of dividend growth. Ideally, you would like to maximize both, but realistically, you will find that the stocks with the highest yield tend to have less attractive prospects for dividend growth. Even so, you will still want to come as close as you can to the best-case ideal.

More dividend resources.

Here is a summary of some recent dividend announcements

• AWD Holding Proposes to Raise 2004 Dividend by 67%
• SAP recommends 38 percent dividend raise
• ECB Increases 2005 Dividend by 12.3%
• U.S. Bancorp Announces Quarterly Common Stock Dividend
• Bovis pledges to double its dividend
• BB&T selected for dividend-based index

More dividend news.

This news suggest that Delphi’s 7cent dividend payout may not last

Delphi reported late last week that an independent audit committee found that it improperly accounted for rebates, credits and lump-sum payments from suppliers. Also, incorrect accounting for off-balance-sheet transactions in 2000 led to a $200 million overstatement for the year. Similar problems resulted in a $61 million overstatement for 2001.

For more dividend news, see here.