Browsing: Dividend

Many investors, particularly retirees, look to dividends for passive income. Christine Benz, Morningstar Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning, points out that dividends are a bird in the hand. It’s often easier to just take the cash from the dividend than it is to sell shares in order to meet your living expenses.

Growth investors typically buy stocks based not on what a business is today, but on what it could become in the future. For dividend investors, it’s frequently the opposite idea. Take, for example, the investment thesis for Altria Group (NYSE: MO), the giant tobacco company behind Marlboro.

Selling shares in a downturn to cover living expenses locks in losses at the worst possible moment, but four dividend stocks spread across $100,000 offer a way to let the portfolio sit untouched while the income does the work.

Dividend growth for five years is encouraging. 10 years is impressive. But increasing shareholder payouts for more than half a century, through recessions, inflation shocks, market crashes and global pandemics, is the mark of a truly exceptional business.

Four blue-chip companies have quietly built dividend records spanning decades, but the real story is how a $200,000 split across them generates cash every quarter regardless of what the broader market decides to do next.

Legendary long-term investor Warren Buffett best encapsulated the idea of passive income, in my view. He said: “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die”.

Five companies quietly raised their dividends in 2026, but a record cash year, a debt-free balance sheet, and a 19-year streak of increases tell very different stories about which payouts can survive the next economic shock.

If you’ve never heard of MPLX LP (NYSE: MPLX), you might want to get to know the company a little — perhaps primarily because of its dividend yield, which was recently a whopping 7.4%.

The S&P 500 index (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) yields a tiny 1% as of this writing. That’s not enough for most dividend investors. However, if you are careful, you can still find attractive stocks with ultra-high yields of 5% or more. Here are five you should consider right now: Hormel (NYSE: HRL), Clorox (NYSE: CLX), Realty Income…

Every share you sell to cover a retirement expense stops working for you forever, but there is a way to collect cash every quarter without shrinking your stake at all. Three dividend payers with ex-dates clustered within days of each…