3 Dividend Stocks That Recently Raised Their Payouts

Don't settle for dividend stocks that don't raise their payouts. If a dividend-paying company is doing well, it should generally have room to increase its dividend, even if by a modest amount. It's not only a good indicator that the business is doing well, but it also means more dividend income for you. Three companies that raised their dividend payments this month are Realty Income (NYSE: O), Target (NYSE: TGT), and FedEx (NYSE: FDX).

Realty Income makes dividend payments on a monthly basis, and the real estate investment trust (REIT) makes for a good, diversified income investment to hold. The REIT's portfolio includes a broad mix of tenants from all areas of the economy. It's not focused on just apartments or hospitals. Instead, it has over 1,500 clients spread across 89 industries.

The REIT often makes multiple dividend increases throughout a year, but since its payments are made every month, they often aren't huge. On June 11, the REIT announced that its monthly dividend would again be going up, from $0.2625 to $0.2630. The payment, which is scheduled for July, is 16% higher than what it was paying its investors five years ago -- $0.2265. The stock's 5.9% yield means you could be collecting more than four times what you would with the average S 500 stock, where the average yield is around 1.3%.

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Source Fool.com