Today AT&T announced that is will be raising its quarterly dividend from $.46 to $.47 a share. This represents a 2.17% increase over last year's increase. It is also the 31th consecutive year of dividend increases. The record date is January 9th and the pay date is February 2nd.
Since I own 355 shares, my annual dividends will increase by $14.20.
I was hoping for a bigger increase but an increase is an increase nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteTawcan,
DeleteWith T and VZ I expect 2-3% so this is fine with me. I look forward to FI when T will be a large provider of yearly income for me.
MDP
No real surprise here, it's what I expected it to be around at this point. Long T
ReplyDeleteCaptain,
DeleteLong live T. I certainly plan to add many more shares over the coming years.
MDP
I wish they would at least increase it by 3%, so that it could at least beat inflation.
ReplyDeleteIt is higher than inflation for the past few years at least. Inflation has been trending at around 2% and falling. It's about 1.3% for 2014
DeleteFY 2014 inflation rate was 1.1%.
DeleteJoel,
Delete3% would be wonderful, but with limited growth I expect penny raises for the forseeable future.
MDP
I'm sure Joel meant to say average inflation rate, which has been around 3%
ReplyDeleteMDP,
ReplyDeleteThe wonderful 1 cent increase... haha. I think it's the most easily anticipated and expected dividend one can get, similar with Pfizer of late (their 2 cents). I just wonder when they are paying out, let's say 60 cents (which could be another 13 years, haha) and the 1 cent is 1.67% growth - you'd like that by that time, they just MAY step into the 2 cent boundaries. All about net income growth and markets they are in (currently saturated and stealing from one another) - a great stock to own nonetheless in a dividend income portfolio. Growth is better than no growth.
-Lanny
Lanny,
DeleteThe T raise is great. As far as the PFE raise, a $.02 raise on a $.26 dividend is much greater percentage-wise than a $.01 raise on a $.46 dividend. At the end of the day, I will gladly take both!
I think in time as long as the business can sustain it, T will start raising $.015 in order to keep the percentage in line with previous raises.
MDP
I think they are being prudent, and that is good to a company with limited growth in the future. At today nº of shares, it means they will return more $50.000.000 to shareholders that they did last year. These are not peanuts.
ReplyDeleteAll that said, any raise above inflation is good.
Trader,
DeleteA 5.5%+ yield and 2% raise are wonderful. I will gladly take these each year. Eventually T will have to increase another half cent or so.
MDP
That is a reasonable raise especially from a high yielding stock. T and VZ are couple of stocks that I plan to initiate positions soon since I don't have any exposure in this sector.
ReplyDeleteDGJ,
DeleteI agree completely. I'm glad you are looking at T and VZ. I almost pulled the trigger on T last week when it was in the 32ish range.
MDP