Company Dividend Hikes

In the beginning of the year, I reviewed my 2005 passive income, mainly from dividend paying stocks I own.

Here is the same list of companies (I still own stock in each) with any quarterly dividend hikes seen in 2006:

	2005 Dividend	206 Dividend	% Increase	Ranking
IBM	$ 0.20	$ 0.30	50%	1
ExxonMobil	$ 0.29	$ 0.32	10%	6
Pfizer	$ 0.19	$ 0.24	26%	2
Bellsouth	$ 0.29	$ 0.29	0%	14
Edison Int.	$ 0.25	$ 0.27	8%	13
Medtronic	$ 0.10	$ 0.11	14%	5
Pepco Energy	$ 0.25	$ 0.26	4%	12
Duke Energy	$ 0.31	$ 0.32	3%	7
Merck	$ 0.38	$ 0.38	0%	3
GE	$ 0.22	$ 0.25	14%	8
Lowes	$ 0.03	$ 0.05	67%	10
P&G	$ 0.28	$ 0.31	11%	9
Chevron	$ 0.45	$ 0.52	16%	11
AnheuserBusch	$ 0.27	$ 0.30	9%	4
		Average	17%

Notes: These are quarterly dividends, Ranking is by current weight in my taxable investment portfolio

All but 2 companies have raised their dividend. Merck, understandably with the Vioxx liability hanging over its head, did not raise its dividend, but I expect that it will resume dividend raises in the next 1-2 years. Bellsouth, also understandably did not raise its dividend as it is in the middle of a merger by AT&T that will net a sizable dividend hike when complete.

The dividend hikes (including the ones that didn't move) were an average of 17% this year - nice!! While you can't read too much into these hikes, companies (like Merck) don't raise dividends when they aren't confident they can pay them.

I can't complain about these sizable dividend hikes!