* Five Companies Confident and Secure In Raising Their Dividends

I have read that most investors will lose money in the stock market over their lifetime. It is not that the market is a bad place to invest your money, but left unchecked the psychology of the market will lead you to do just the opposite of what you should to be doing. People become greedy when the market is surging to new highs and buy in only to become fearful and sell during the next slump. The great investors know this and use it to their advantage.

One way to be more confident and secure in the market is to focus on companies that consistently pay and grow their dividends. Below are five companies that recently committed to returning cash to their shareholders through higher dividends:

• Bunge Limited (BG) raised its quarterly dividend 10.5% to $0.21/share, yielding 1.37%
• FactSet Research (FDS) increased its quarterly dividend 11% to $0.20/share, yielding 1.47%
• AmTrust Financial (AFSI) boosted its quarterly dividend 20% to $0.06/share, yielding 2.54%
• Communications Systems (JCS) upped its quarterly dividend 16.6% to $0.14/Share, yielding 6.15%
• Portland General Electric (POR) bumped its quarterly dividend 4% to $0.255, yielding 5.58%

It is easy to be confident and secure when you invest in the best dividend stocks in the world! For companies with a long string of consecutive dividend increases, see this list.

Full Disclosure: No position in the aforementioned companies. See a list of all my income holdings here.

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Tags: [AFSI] [BG] [FDS] [JCS] [POR]