Dividend Stocks Increasing Payouts

With record cash in corporate coffers, investors have been egging on corporate management teams to return value to shareholders in the form of dividend checks -- and a growing number of companies are listening. Over the last 36 years, dividend stocks outperformed the rest of the S&P 500 by 2.5% annually, and they outperformed nonpayers by nearly 8% every year, according to a study from National Data Research.

Dividend investing is "a sustainable strategy that will be a key driver for performance and total return in 2011," said Lawrence Glazer, Managing Partner with Mayflower Advisors, in a recent appearance on CNBC. Glazer encouraged investors to reconsider top dividend-paying "Dogs of the Dow" such as Verizon(VZ), Johnson & Johnson(JNJ), Merck(MRK) and Kraft Foods(KFT), blue chips that have offered decades of dividend increases and sustainable payouts, many with stronger yields than 10-year treasury notes. Verizon, which recently increased its quarterly dividend by 2.6% to 48.75 cents per share, offers an annualized dividend yield of around 5.73%; Johnson & Johnson 3.49%, Merck 4.22% and Kraft 3.77%.

Source: TheStreet.com

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