Dividend Stocks Ready to Pay You More

There's a better way for income investors to build their dividend portfolios than just piling in after a big dividend hike. That's exactly why we're scouring the stock market for a new group of big-name stocks that look ready to hike their dividend payouts in the coming quarter. In other words, these five firms are getting ready to boost dividends; they just don't know it yet.

For our purposes, that "crystal ball" is composed of a few factors: namely a solid balance sheet, a low payout ratio, and a history of dividend hikes. While those items don't guarantee dividend announcements in the next month or three, they do dramatically increase the odds that management will hike their cash payouts, especially as investors start to get antsy about this late-2012 rally. The number of dividend hikes we've already been able to predict with this same approach speaks volumes about this approach.

Source: The Street

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