The Top Dividend Stocks of the Week

Updated from 5:52 a.m. EST

Even as the stock market drops, some companies continue to reward shareholders by increasing their dividends. Occasionally you will hear about a company slashing its dividend, but last week nearly 20 domestic companies boosted their dividend payments.

Stockpickr has reviewed the stocks and compiled a list of the top dividend increasers for the week.

One of the stocks with biggest dividend increases during the last couple of weeks is World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE Quote), which raised its quarterly dividend by 50% from 24 cents to 36 cents a share. This producer of television and pay-per-view wrestling event programming and live events last month reported a 23% year-over-year increase in its fourth-quarter sales. The stock has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 24, a low P/E-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 0.6 and a high yield of 8.1%.

World Wrestling is owned by Eaglerock Capital Management, a New York-based event-driven hedge fund. Founded by Nader Tavakoli in 2001, the fund follows three core strategies: long/short credit, long/short special situations equities and capital structure arbitrage. Eaglerock also owns shares of Spectra Energy (SE Quote), which yields 3.8%, Movado Group (MOV Quote), which yields 1.6%, and Libbey (LBY Quote), which pays a yield of 0.6%.

Colgate-Palmolive (CL Quote) also makes the list, having raised its quarterly dividend last week by 11% to 40 cents a share. The stock has a P/E ratio of 24, a PEG of 1.8 and a yield of 2.1%.

Colgate also appears in the portfolio of the T. Rowe Price Equity Income Fund, which is managed by Brian Rogers and also holds shares of General Electric (GE Quote), which yields 3.7%, JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote), yielding 3.6%, and Chevron (CVX Quote), which pays a yield of 2.6%.

Allstate (ALL Quote) last week increased its quarterly dividend by 7.9% to 41 cents a share. The large insurance company announced that it is launching a new stock-buyback program, and is planning to repurchase up to $2 billion of its stock during the next 12 months. The stock has a P/E of 6, a PEG of 1.1 and pays a yield of 3.4%.

Allstate also shows up in Barron's Stocks That Represent a Huge Buying Opportunity, an interesting Stockpickr portfolio from January that also lists Macy's (M Quote), which yields 2.1%, J.C. Penney (JCP Quote), which yields 1.7%, and Chubb (CB Quote), a large insurance company that pays a yield of 2.3%.

For a complete list of now-higher-yielding stocks, check out the Dividend Increasers for the Week Ending March 1 at Stockpickr.com.