5 Stocks Primed to Pay Bigger Dividends

BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) -- These five companies are primed to pay out more dividends next quarter -- they just don't know it yet.

Earnings season is grinding to a halt this quarter and investors are again starting to look for new catalysts that could be moving their portfolio positions. But even though corporate earnings are one of the biggest share price drivers, there's been a bit of a disconnect this earnings season between earnings and the price of a company's stock.

While it's not completely clear when that disconnect will sort itself out, there is a way to bypass stock prices in the interim and get rewarded for corporate performance: I'm talking, of course, about dividends.

>>Also see: 8 Stocks Ripping Higher on Big Volume

Investors have taken on a renewed interest in the last couple of years, after being unceremoniously reminded in 2007 and 2008 that those quarterly checks contribute a whole heck of a lot of Mr. Market's historical returns. According to research from Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel, reinvested dividends account for 97% of total market performance. So it shouldn't be a big surprise that finding dividend increasers is a big priority.

Today, we'll look into the crystal ball to try and find firms likely to hike their payouts in the quarter ahead.

For our purposes, that "crystal ball" is composed of a few factors: namely a solid balance sheet, a low payout ratio and a history of dividend hikes. While those items don't guarantee dividend announcements in the next month or two, they do dramatically increase the odds that management will hike their cash payouts, especially as investors start to get antsy about this 2012 rally.

Without further ado, here's a look at five stocks that could be about to increase their dividend payments in the next quarter.

1 2 3 4 5 6 Next › Last »