These techs keep raising their dividends

Article Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP. $152 (New York symbol IBM; Conservative Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 921.8 million; Market cap: $140.1 billion; Dividend yield: 4.1%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.ibm.com) is one of the world’s largest computer companies, with operations in over 175 countries. Starting with the June 2018 payment, IBM raised its quarterly dividend by 4.7%, to $1.57 a share from $1.50. The new annual rate of $6.28 yields a high 4.1%. The company has paid dividends continuously since 1916 and has raised the annual rate each year for the past 23 years. Due to slowing demand for its traditional mainframe computers and related services, IBM is aggressively shifting into faster-growing fields. They include cloud computing services (the storage of files and programs using the Internet) and analytics software (including its Watson supercomputer) to process increasingly large amounts of data. For the three months ended June 30, 2018, the company’s overall earnings rose 2.7%, to $2.83 billion from $2.76 billion…