Now’s a great time for dividend investing!
On Wednesday alone, dozens of Wall Street’s biggest names go ex-dividend, including Bank of America (BAC), Coach (COH), Halliburton (HAL), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), PepsiCo (PEP) and Wal-Mart (WMT). While the ship has passed to get in on these dividend payments, there is plenty more from where that came from. The final few weeks of 2013 are chock full of ex-dividend dates.
But a word of caution to yield seekers: Dividend stocks have become more volatile of late. So if you want to pad your portfolio with extra income—without adding risk—you’ll need to carefully screen each dividend stock you’re thinking of buying. The good news is that I’ve done much of the work already.
So without further ado, here’s a listing of the big ex-dividend dates that are coming up, as well as my analysis on whether each stock is a buy at current prices.
Dividend Dates To Keep On Your Radar
| Ticker | Company | Dividend Yield | Ex-Dividend | Dividend Payment | My Take |
| BBY | Best Buy Co. | 1.66% | 12/6/2013 | $0.17 | Strong Buy |
| HPQ | Hewlett-Packard | 2.12% | 12/9/2013 | $0.15 | Strong Buy |
| LUV | Southwest Airlines | 0.86% | 12/10/2013 | $0.04 | Strong Buy |
| TMO | Thermo Fisher Scientific | 0.60% | 12/12/2013 | $0.15 | Strong Buy |
| WLP | WellPoint | 1.60% | 12/5/2013 | $0.38 | Strong Buy |
| ADP | Automatic Data Processing | 2.41% | 12/11/2013 | $0.48 | Buy |
| KSS | Kohl’s Corp. | 2.54% | 12/9/2013 | $0.35 | Buy |
| M | Macy’s Inc. | 1.91% | 12/11/2013 | $0.25 | Buy |
| NKE | NIKE Inc. | 1.21% | 12/12/2013 | $0.24 | Buy |
| VFC | V.F. Corporation | 1.78% | 12/6/2013 | $1.05 | Buy |
| CBS | CBS Corp. | 0.82% | 12/9/2013 | $0.12 | Hold |
| FDX | FedEx Corp. | 0.43% | 12/10/2013 | $0.15 | Hold |
| MRK | Merck & Co. | 3.51% | 12/12/2013 | $0.44 | Hold |
| ROST | Ross Stores | 0.91% | 12/9/2013 | $0.17 | Hold |
| TIF | Tiffany & Co. | 1.54% | 12/12/2013 | $0.34 | Hold |
| A | Agilent Technologies | 0.90% | 12/27/2013 | $0.13 | Sell |
| APC | Anadarko Petroleum | 0.81% | 12/9/2013 | $0.18 | Sell |
