Dividend Payment Boosts

Barron’s delivery of the print edition is, at best, hit-or-miss. I decided to retry a six-month subscription to see if the local delivery had improved. Week one Barron’s was on the driveway. Week two it was not. If customer service is a Barron’s goal, they seem to struggle with finding reliable ways of getting the magazine to the customer. In a pinch, I will use the online version, but that isn’t quite the same. I did scroll until I found my favorite table: DIVIDEND PAYMENT BOOSTS.

How to Read Dividend Payment Boosts.

Look at Dividend Payment Reductions and then review Dividend Payment Boosts

I generally start by looking for investments I already own. In this week’s edition, Realty Income (O), appears with a 0.2% increase. While that doesn’t sound like much, O pays the dividend monthly, and small increased do appear more frequently for this REIT.

After that I look for a percentage increase that is at least 9-10%. In this chart, you can see that nine stocks fit my search criteria. The ones I looked at first are labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4. Entering the ticker symbols on Seeking Alpha helped me to see that the increase for RWT is a bit of an illusion. RWT decreased their dividend from $0.32 in March 2020 to $0.13 for the June quarter. The dividend has been recovering, but even the most recent 12.5% increase only gets an $0.18 per share dividend. I will pass on RWT. The same is true of MFA.

Alico, Inc. (ALCO)

Alico is a consumer staples company headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida. It is a micro-cap company and there is very light trading volume. Therefore, for most investors this company should be viewed as higher risk.

However, I am intrigued by the business. “Alico, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an agribusiness and land management company in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Alico Citrus, and Land Management and Other Operations. The Alico Citrus segment cultivates citrus trees to produce citrus for delivery to the processed and fresh citrus markets. The Land Management and Other Operations segment owns and manages land in Collier, Glades, and Hendry Counties; and leasing of land for recreational and grazing purposes, conservation, and mining activities.” – Seeking Alpha Company Profile

If I decide to buy shares of ALCO, it will be best to buy them June 22 or June 23. The $0.50 dividend has an Ex-Dividend Date of June 24.

Investar Holding Corporation (ISTR)

As you can see, I didn’t mention dividend yield as a primary search criterion. ISTR (Investar Holding Corporation) might escape a yield investor’s eye. Although ISTR is a micro-cap, and the yield is only 1.4%, the dividend growth and payout ratio are very appealing. The payout ratio is 14.24% and the 5-year growth rate is 50.57%. It is now on my shopping list.

Keep Stock Research Time to a Minimum

Time is a precious commodity. Therefore, using the weekly Barron’s to look at potential investments helps me minimize fruitless searches using other tools.