Recent Dividend Increases

Dividend investors would be wise to focus not just on a stock's current yield, but also on the long-term growth potential of its dividends. That's because strong businesses that consistently raise their dividend payouts reward shareholders with a steadily rising income stream that essentially equates to a raise every year. Below are some stocks which have increased their dividends recently.

Phillips 66 - (PSX) - On October 2, Phillips 66 surprised many by announcing a 25% increase to its quarterly dividend to $0.39 per share. This would mark Phillips 66's third dividend increase in only six quarters. At current prices, Phillips 66 now yields about 2.60%.

Lockheed Martin (LMT) - Declared a quarterly dividend of $1.33 per share, or $5.32 annualized. This is a 15.7% increase from the prior dividend of $1.15. The dividend will be payable on December 27, 2013, to stockholders of record on December 2, 2013, with an ex-dividend date of November 27, 2013. The annual yield on the dividend is 4.1 percent.

McDonalds (MCD) - Raised its dividend 5.20% to $0.81 per share. Shares yield an appetizing 3.43%. The fast-food giant’s five-year dividend growth rate is 13.90% per year. This dividend champion has raised distributions for 37 years in a row.

Microsoft (MSFT) - Increased its dividend 21.7% to $0.28 per share. The tech giant has raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years. The five-year dividend growth rate is 15.10%.

Northwest Natural Gas Co (NWN) - Raised its third-quarter dividend of $0.46 per share, a 1% increase in the payout made to investors last quarter of $0.455 per share.  The quarterly dividend is payable on Nov. 15 to the holders of record at the close of business on Oct. 31. The regular dividend payment equates to a $1.84-per-share annual dividend, yielding 4.4%. NWN is a dividend champion which has increased its dividend for 58 consecutive years.

Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI) - Declared a quarterly dividend of $0.48 per share, or $1.92 annualized. This is a 2.1% increase from the prior dividend of $0.47. The dividend will be payable on November 15, 2013, to stockholders of record on October 31, 2013, with an ex-dividend date of October 29, 2013. The annual yield on the dividend is 6.1 percent.

Full Disclosure: I have a position in McDonalds (MCD) at the time of this writing. You can see a list of all my dividend growth positions here.

Recent Buy - Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI)

Recently I initiated a new position in Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI). I purchased 31 shares at a price of $35.40 which was $1097.40 total. There's been some weakness in the stock since July and it looked to be a good time to jump in at this point so I pulled the trigger.

Kinder Morgan, Inc. owns and operates energy transportation and storage assets in the United States and Canada. The company owns an interest in or operates approximately 75,000 miles of pipelines and 180 terminals. Its pipelines transport natural gas, gasoline, crude oil, CO2 and other products, and its terminals store petroleum products and chemicals and handle such products as ethanol, coal, petroleum coke and steel. The company also owns the general partner and approximately 11% of the limited partner interests of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P., referred to as ‘KMP.

This brings the energy portion of my portfolio up to nearly 20% total which is too much if I was not still accumulating stocks. However I thought that KMI was a good price at these levels so I made the purchase and I will worry about balancing my portfolio in future buys. 

KMI Stock Chart

KMI Basic Statistics

• Ticker Symbol: KMI
• PE Ratio: 34.26
• Yield: 4.7%
• Dividend Growth 5yr:  10%
• Payout Ratio: 124%
• Market cap: $36.76 B
• Website: http://www.kindermorgan.com

KMI Dividend Growth

September Dividend Income

My dividend income for My total dividend income for September totaled  $167.99. This was a big improvement over last quarter where I made $149.49 in June and more than double last years September total of $81.89 so I'm pretty happy with that. This month I made 2 purchases. There were no dividend increases this month for me. You can see all of my dividend income here.

September Purchases

WGL Holdings (WGL) - 26 @ $42.50
Altria (MO) - 35 @ $34.08

Company	Description	Symbol	Amount
Universal Health Trust	ORDINARY DIVIDEND	UHT	31.25
McDonalds	QUALIFIED DIVIDEND	MCD	8.47
Realty Income	ORDINARY DIVIDEND	O	18.15
Avista	QUALIFIED DIVIDEND	AVA	17.69
Lorillard	QUALIFIED DIVIDEND	LO	15.4
Johnson & Johnson	QUALIFIED DIVIDEND	JNJ	11.22
Chevron	QUALIFIED DIVIDEND	CVX	10
Walmart	QUALIFIED DIVIDEND	WMT	15.98
Intel	QUALIFIED DIVIDEND	INTC	39.83