It was an overall rocky week for the markets, but this has been
one of the biggest weeks in recent memory when it comes to dividend
increases. We have seen payout boosts this week from the likes of
Home Depot (
HD
), Genuine Parts (
GPC
), CME Group (
CME
), Blackrock (
BLK
), Gap Inc. (
GPS
) and numerous others. Plus, we have seen well-known companies like
Wellpoint Inc. (
WLP
), Kohl's (
KSS
), CEC Entertainment (
CEC
) (Chuck-E-Cheese's owner), and Interpublic Group (
IPG
). We expect more companies that have not ever paid a dividend to
come on board the dividend express as time moves on.
Lots of drama surrounding the NYSE Euronext (
NYX
) takeover as we hear the Nasdaq OMX Group(
NDAQ
) may be frantic to make a last-second charge into the picture.
They were probably surprised by the announcement the NYSE would be
selling out to European exchange operator Deutsche Borse. My
business gut tells me a rushed bid by the Nasdaq may not be their
best option when it comes time to figuring out how they would
integrate the exchanges and maximize profits from the deal, not to
mention any potential antitrust issues.
On a side note, did anyone notice General Motors (
GM
) broke below its IPO price yesterday after the shares slid
following the company's earnings release? The auto giant recently
re-listed but still does not pay a dividend, so we do not presently
cover the stock from a ratings standpoint.
We made some changes to our recommended list today, so be sure
to check out the links below if you did not read the e-mail alerts
we sent out earlier. The market is getting a much-needed bounce
today after what has been a poor week for the averages. We saw some
of the dividend growth plays rebounding, including Deere (
DE
), Caterpillar (
CAT
), and Eaton Corp (
ETN
). Shares of Wells Fargo (
WFC
) were up as analysts continue to expect the company to raise its
dividend to respectable levels sometime soon. Unlike Weight
Watchers' (
WTW
) recent earnings blowout, Nutrisystem (
NTRI
) shares were walloped following the company's earnings report.
Retailer J.C. Penney (
JCP
) finished lower after it posted its earnings numbers.
According to a recent study by the Employee Benefit Research
Institute, nearly half (47%) of early baby boomers aged 56 to 62
are at risk of outliving their retirement savings. Late boomers (46
to 55) and generation Xers (36 to 45) are also at a huge risk as
43% and 45% of those groups, respectively, will be unable to afford
the growing cost of retirement. Remember there is hope. When I was
on Stu Taylor's Equity Strategies radio show yesterday, we
discussed the options if you are older and have not saved a dime
yet. Basically, let's say you just turned 50 and you looked at your
income statement and there is nothing but a $0 at the bottom of the
page, you still have plenty of time to build a solid nest egg. For
instance, you can start maxing out a Roth IRA contribution
($5K/year currently, but in addition to the "standard" contribution
limits, taxpayers age 50 and over are eligible to make a Roth IRA
catch-up contribution of an additional $1K/year). If you were to
invest $5K per year for every year in your 50s, each $5K you invest
would turn into more than $40K after 20 years. So you see, it's
never too late to get started! Now if you have kids, you may want
to give them a quick lesson on how well they can do if they get
started younger putting money to work. If your child invests just
$5000 by the time they turn 19 years of age, and did nothing else -
but let's say buy dividend stocks and re-invest the dividends, they
could end up with a $325K nest egg based on historical 11% returns
for dividend-paying stocks. Plus, they get to take it out tax-free
after they reach 59-1/2. All good stuff and this shows you that
there is plenty of time for investors to get down to business.
As we look ahead to next week, earnings season will ease just a
bit, but there will still be plenty of big names reporting numbers
including H.J. Heinz (
HNZ
), Staples (
SPLS
), PetSmart (
PETM
) and more. Be sure to catch up with our latest watchlist updates
this weekend on Dividend.com Premium, including reports on
earnings/story stocks, analyst upgrades/downgrades, dividend ETFs,
and more. And as always, you can view our current recommendations
on our industry-leading
Best Dividend Stocks List
.
Thanks again for reading everybody!
Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the
Best Dividend Stocks
, as well as a detailed explanation of
our ratings system here
.