36 Companies Likely to Raise Dividends in the Next 10 Weeks - Seeking Alpha

In compiling the Dividend Champions list I get to see what companies are nearing the anniversaries of their previous dividend increases. Since most of these firms raise their payout about the same time every year, I can say with some confidence that they are likely to do so again.

Quiet Time

For the previous article in this series, I extended the forward look to a period of about 10 weeks. But as I explained in last week's article about the seasonality of dividend increases, we are in the slowest part of the year in terms of activity. But while the fewest increases carry a July Ex-Dividend Date (and August Pay Date), those coincide to some extent with June Announcements, so we may have passed the very slowest period of increases in terms of increased dividend declarations. Of the 28 companies listed in my June 10 article, only three announced increases, so most of them have been carried over here. Based on last year's announcements, I'm expecting the following companies to announce dividend increases between now and the anniversary of their previous increase:

Dividend Champions (25 or more years):

		No.	5/31		Qtrly	LY%	LY
Company	Symbol	Yrs	Price	Yield	Rate	Inc.	Ex-Div
Helmerich & Payne Inc.	HP	38	62.68	0.38	0.0600	20.00	8/11/10
Carlisle Companies	CSL	34	48.60	1.40	0.1700	6.25	8/13/10
Walgreen Company	WAG	35	43.63	1.60	0.1750	27.27	8/17/10
Dover Corp.	DOV	55	67.23	1.64	0.2750	5.77	8/27/10
Nordson Corp.	NDSN	47	52.02	0.81	0.1050	10.53	8/27/10
Conn. Water Service	CTWS	41	25.21	3.69	0.2325	2.20	8/30/10
MGE Energy Inc.	MGEE	34	41.64	3.60	0.3751	1.82	8/30/10

Dividend Contenders (10-24 years):

		No.	5/31		Qtrly	LY%	LY
Company	Symbol	Yrs	Price	Yield	Rate	Inc.	Ex-Div
A.O. Smith Corp.	AOS	17	41.47	1.35	0.1400	7.69	7/28/10
AptarGroup Inc.	ATR	17	53.40	1.35	0.1800	20.00	7/28/10
National Retail Prop.	NNN	21	25.78	5.90	0.3800	1.33	7/28/10
CARBO Ceramics	CRR	10	150.27	0.53	0.2000	11.11	7/30/10
Inergy LP	NRGY	10	37.09	7.60	0.7050	1.44	8/4/10
Murphy Oil Corp.	MUR	15	68.89	1.60	0.2750	10.00	8/12/10
Alterra Capital Holdings	ALTE	10	22.75	2.11	0.1200	20.00	8/13/10
Badger Meter Inc.	BMI	18	37.22	1.50	0.1400	16.67	8/27/10
Chesapeake Financial	CPKF.PK	18	11.85	3.71	0.1100	4.76	8/30/10
Computer Services Inc.	CSVI.PK	22	27.65	1.59	0.1100	15.79	8/30/10

Dividend Challengers (5-9 years):

		No.	5/31		Qtrly	LY%	LY
Company	Symbol	Yrs	Price	Yield	Rate	Inc.	Ex-Div
Darden Restaurants	DRI	6	50.65	2.53	0.3200	28.00	7/7/10
General Mills	GIS	7	39.77	2.82	0.2800	14.29	7/8/10
MSC Industrial Direct	MSM	8	69.51	1.27	0.2200	10.00	7/9/10
Astrazeneca plc	AZN	7	52.40	4.60	1.2050	15.31	8/4/10
Landstar System Inc.	LSTR	6	47.32	0.42	0.0500	11.11	8/5/10
Lindsay Corp.	LNN	8	67.08	0.51	0.0850	6.25	8/13/10
Maxim Integrated Prod.	MXIM	9	27.25	3.08	0.2100	5.00	8/18/10
Oil-Dri Corp. of America	ODC	8	22.28	2.87	0.1600	6.67	8/18/10
Ritchie Brothers Auction.	RBA	8	27.72	1.52	0.1050	5.00	8/18/10
Cummins Inc.	CMI	5	105.24	1.00	0.2625	50.00	8/19/10
Ryder System	R	6	55.00	1.96	0.2700	8.00	8/19/10
Steris Corp.	STE	6	36.09	1.66	0.1500	36.36	8/20/10
Crane Company	CR	6	49.19	1.87	0.2300	15.00	8/27/10
Delta Natural Gas	DGAS	6	31.57	4.31	0.3400	4.62	8/27/10
ITC Holdings Corp.	ITC	6	72.29	1.85	0.3350	4.69	8/30/10
Westlake Chemical	WLK	7	56.10	0.45	0.0635	10.43	8/30/10
Bob Evans Farms	BOBE	5	31.35	2.55	0.2000	11.11	9/3/10

I still anticipate that two companies – Altera Corp. (ALTR) andEnbridge Energy Partners LP (EEP) - will boost their dividends during this period, marking their fifth straight year of increases and promoting them to Challenger status. Both hiked their dividend last year with Ex-Dividend Dates in the first week of August. That's also when about two dozen MLPs (Master Limited Partnerships) tend to increase the payout each quarter. Not all of these companies will meet the strict standards of every investor, but they may be appropriate for portfolio diversification. Potential investors should do more research before committing funds.

Disclosure: I am long DOV R

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