8 Companies Paying Investors To Hold Onto Their Stock

By Dividend Growth Investor:I track the list of dividend increases every week for the stocks I own. Over the past week, there were 49 companies that raised dividends. I scanned the list and focused on the ones I own as well as another that I have been patiently waiting to purchase for the past two years. Whether the market goes up or down from here, these dependable dividend payers will continue generating the earnings streams to pay a stable and rising dividend to me.

Value Expectations submits: We have been providing several stocks lists on ValueExpectations.com lately - Hot Stocks in Asia, Dividend Payers, which can be used as a defensive strategy in the current economic environment of slow growth, weak currency and weak recovery

Dividend Growth Investor submits:Becton, Dickinson and Company (BDX), a medical technology company, develops, manufactures, and sells medical devices, instrument systems, and reagents worldwide. This dividend champion has increased distributions for the past 38 consecutive years.

Chuck Carnevale submits:<< Click to read Part IIntroductionIn Part I of this two-part series we pointed out how proposed spending cuts by Defense Secretary Robert Gates are designed to hold the growth of the $680 billion defense department budget to only 1% or 2% for the next few years.

By Dividend Growth Investor:Every week I scan the list of dividend increases and focus on the consistent dividend growers in a little bit of extra detail. I define consistent dividend grower as companies which have managed to boost distributions for over five consecutive years. Over the past week and a half, the following consistent income stocks raised distributions:

By Dividend Growth Investor:As a dividend investor, I get rewarded any time that a stock I own pays me a dividend. I get particularly excited, when a stock I own also regularly raises distributions. That being said, I thoroughly analyze financial statements, earnings estimates, major press releases, and try to gain a general feel of how a particular business is doing.

By Dividend Growth Investor:Dividends serve as a reality check for companies and management, a form of positive feedback that helps to check speculation. Managing earnings is easy--any good accountant can do it. But distributing cold cash to shareholders requires a hard economic decision--once paid out it is irretrievable.

Dobromir Stoyanov submits:According to Ned Davis Research, $100 invested in all dividend payers of the S&P 500 index in 1972, would have grown to $2,266 by the end of 2009. The same $100 invested in non-dividend paying stocks in the S&P 500 returned a negative 39% over the same period. The performance of dividend payers and initiators was even better, returning $2,945 on the initial investment in 1972.