Top 10 Dividend Stocks of the Week

Despite the fact that last week was a light one on Wall Street before the Labor Day weekend, several companies took the major financial step of increasing their dividends, providing shareholders with an added incentive to stay long.

Stockpickr has sorted through the list of last week's dividend-raisers and extracted the ones that offer the highest yields in the Top 10 Yielding Dividend-Increase Stocks for the Week.

One of the highest-yielding stocks on this week's list is Altria(MO Quote), which yields 4.3% and just increased its quarterly dividend by 8.7% to 75 cents a share.

Last week, the tobacco company's board of directors announced plans to spin off Phillip Morris International.

Also, last Friday, a judge ruled in favor of Altria, throwing out a lawsuit filed by three people from Maine claiming deceptive and unfair advertising relating to the company's so-called light cigarettes. The stock has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 13 and a P/E-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 2.2.

Altria is one of the most widely held stocks by institutions, among them, the Vice Fund, which has generated an average annual return of 18.7% for the last three years.

The fund invests more than 80% of its assets in stocks that are considered socially irresponsible. The Vice Fund also contains Diageo(DEO Quote), the London-based distributor of liquor, wine and beer. Diageo has a P/E of 17, a PEG of 1.6 and a yield of 2.4%.