Dividends and who’s paying them in April?

A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a proportion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders.

How do stock dividends work?

A dividend is paid per share of stock — if you own 30 shares in a company and that company pays $2 in annual cash dividends, you will receive $60 per year.

Types of dividends

Usually, dividends are paid out on a company’s common stock. There are several types of dividends a company can choose to pay out to its shareholders.

• Cash dividends. The most common type of dividend. Companies generally pay these in cash directly into the shareholder’s brokerage account.
• Stock dividends. Instead of paying cash, companies can also pay investors with additional shares of stock.
• Dividend reinvestment programs (DRIPs). Investors in DRIPs are able to reinvest any dividends received back into the company’s stock, often at a discount.
• Special dividends.  These dividends payout on all shares of a company’s common stock, but don’t recur like regular dividends. A company often issues a special dividend to distribute profits that have accumulated over several years and for which it has no immediate need.
• Preferred dividends. Payouts issued to owners of preferred stock. Preferred stock is a type of stock that functions less like a stock and more like a bond. Dividends are usually paid quarterly, but unlike dividends on common stock, dividends on preferred stock are generally fixed.

 Stocks that pay dividends in April

Dividend Aristocrats are companies from the S&P 500 with a history of paying and increasing their dividends for 25 years or more. As part of putting together a monthly dividend portfolio, consistent dividend histories help you build a likely reliable passive income stream. Here is a list of 21 Dividend Aristocrat stocks that pay dividends in April:

• Albemarle Corporation (ALB)
• Automatic Data Processing (ADP)
• Brown-Forman (Class B shares) (BF.B)
• Cardinal Health Inc. (CAH)
• Chubb Limited (CB)
• Cincinnati Financial Corp (CINF)
• Coca-Cola Co (KO)
• Ecolab Inc (ECL)
• Essex Property Trust (ESS)
• Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT)
• Franklin Resources (BEN)
• Genuine Parts Company (GPC)
• Illinois Tool Works (ITW)
• Kimberly-Clark (KMB)
• Leggett & Platt (LEG)
• McCormick & Company (MKC)
• Medtronic (MDT)
• Realty Income (O)
• Roper Technologies (ROP)
• Sysco (SYY)
• Walmart (WMT

You are able to trade these assets as Share CFDs, Indices or buy into the shares individually.

Sourcess: Wikipedia, freshdividends.com, www.nerdwallet.com