40 Blue Chips Increasing Dividends in Q2

If you ever needed evidence of the value of dividends, just take a look at the second quarter.

As the eurozone again looked prime for a collapse, and reports out of China indicated anything but the wildly breakneck growth the rest of the free world was hoping for, investors trampled each other on their way out of risky equities and into the sweet, gentle security blanket of income investments.

While a good amount of the money flying to income went into bond funds or dividend-equity funds, a number of stocks themselves were in red-hot demand. Take a look at the run-ups in both AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ), each of which hit all-time highs despite any significant upgrades in their growth prospects. What did investors covet? Yields in the high 4 percents!

So, it’s hard to ignore the flurry of activity by board members in the past few months to keep boosting dividend payouts. In some cases, you have companies with hefty dividends just adding to the pile. In other cases, the hike doesn’t make a low yield that much more impressive, but does instill some faith in the business. In all cases, no one’s complaining about a little extra cash.

This group of companies featured in our weekly Companies Increasing Dividends lists includes your traditional dividend heavyweights, like energy, pharma and tobacco. And perhaps most impressive, it includes a full third of the Dow Jones Industrials Average!

It doesn’t get any blue-chippier than that!

If you’re hunting for some of the biggest movers in yield as of late, here’s a look at 40 of the biggest names on Wall Street upping their dividends, including the new payout, the percentage increase, yield based on the end-of-quarter stock price, and payment and record dates:

Gold miners primarily are a way to get indirect exposure to gold, but a few of them — like Kinross Gold (NYSE:KGC, 1.9%) and Eldorado Gold (NYSE:EGO, 1.4%) — also throw out modest dividends. Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX) kept up its status as one of the best current yields among miners with its second-quarter move to upgrade its dividend by almost a third to 20 cents a share. As of July 2, ABX shares throw off north of 2% in dividends.

Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), the maker of construction and mining equipment, has been SOL in 2012. The slowdown in Chinese economic growth has weighed heavily on the Big Cat, leading to a steady decline in its share price since peaking in February. But CAT investors have at least one constant bright spot — its quarterly payout, doled out for almost 80 years without interruption. That consistency has landed Caterpillar on InvestorPlace‘s list of Dependable Dividend Stocks — and at a dividend yield of about 2.5%, it likely also has landed in numerous income investors’ portfolios.

Most of the big-time retailing spotlight has been on Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), which is celebrating its 50th birthday in absolute style with a run-up in share prices to decade-plus highs. But warehouser Costco (NASDAQ:COST) is pulling off a similar sprint after 13% year-to-date gains. And while investors show their confidence in Costco by driving up shares, COST management made its own statement with a nearly 15% dividend increase in Q2.

Good ol’ utilities. Duke Energy‘s (NYSE:DUK) 2012 performance is right in line with its boring ol’ defensive play reputation — a steady 5% gain with a chart you could comfortably lie down on. In fact, the only real action DUK has seen as of late was its first day of trading in Q3, when the company enacted a 1-for-3 reverse stock split following the completion of its acquisition of Progress Energy.