Featured Articles

In addition to collecting income from common stock distributions, investors can opt to receive income payouts from preferred dividend stocks, which generally distribute higher dividends with less risk than common shares. Additionally, preferred stockholders receive dividend distributions before any earnings or asset disbursements are allocated to common stock dividend payouts. In case of bankruptcy proceedings or liquidation, holders of preferred…

Always on the lookout for the best dividend stocks for portfolio diversification, income investors should consider equities with a history of reliable dividend growth that also offer continued or renewed asset appreciation. Investing a substantial share of a portfolio in a “hot” sector to capture the upward momentum can certainly offer strong gains. However, this strategy typically works mostly for…

Dividend Aristocrats are a group of few dozen S&P 500 companies that have a record of boosting their annual dividend distribution amount for at least the last 25 consecutive years. Published in 1989, the first list of Dividend Aristocrats contained 26 companies. List rebalancing to add and drop companies based on their eligibility occurs quarterly in January, April, July and…

Since their introduction in the mid-1990s, the number of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has expanded exponentially and income investors now can choose from thousands of high yield dividend ETFs to bolster their dividend income. As an established investment form, the total number of mutual funds increased 17% between 1999 and 2017. During the same period, the number of available ETFs increased…

While not known for extraordinarily high dividend yields, the Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has continued raising its quarterly payouts and has announced its 14th consecutive annual dividend hike for the last quarter of the calendar year. This current boost is the company’s 14th boost annual dividend hike in the 16 years since Microsoft began dividend payouts. The share price rose significantly…