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After nearly a month without a single new offering of preferred stock, we now have finally seen two offerings in the last week. The first one features large mortgage real estate investment trust (REIT) Chimera Investment Corporation (NYSE:CIM) and sold an offering of perpetual fixed-to-floating rate preferred stock with an initial coupon of 8%. The second preferred stock offering occurred…

While Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM) struggled to achieve any lasting share-price growth over the past few years, the company’s rising dividend delivered positive total returns on investment even over the trailing 12 months. Unlike many of the company’s competitors that were forced to cut dividends in addition to suffering falling share prices, Williams-Sonoma has boosted its annual dividend payout every year since…

Based on the timing of annual dividend hikes, investors should expect Lowe's Companies, Inc. (NYSE:LOW) to declare its 58th consecutive annual dividend hike in late May or early June 2019. However, the company is not relying solely on its very long record of annual dividend hikes to attract income investors. The company’s current 2% yield is on the lower end of…

While dividend investing seems fairly simple, investors should pause occasionally and take the time to understand fully how dividends work to increase their chances of finding the best investment opportunities and achieving long-term returns. Income investors generally are very busy sifting through corporate financial statements or running dividend discount models in search of the best dividend-paying stocks for their portfolio.…

Investors know that dividends are distributions of a company’s assets to its shareholders and understand the basic analytical tools to select the best dividend-paying stocks. However, many investors – especially novices and part-time investors – might have to pause before answering the “How are dividends taxed?” question. The first inclination might be that that cash dividends are taxed as any…