Earlier this month, I provided an updated prediction for what I thought we would see when cigarette giant Altria (NYSE:MO) announced its potential dividend raise in late August. Last week, we got the news we were waiting for, with a nearly 8% increase in the quarterly payout. As seen in the chart below, Altria's dividend has more than doubled since 2008, with the year below representing the majority of payments. Now that this annual Altria tradition is in the books, it's time to look forward to some important events the rest of this year.
*The first value of $0.29 includes an adjustment for the PM spin-off. Altria paid a $0.29 dividend after the spin-off, but then raised it in the second half of the year to $0.32, the value you see above for 2009. The 2010 value presented is the $0.34 that was paid after the raise, but the first two declarations during the 2010 calendar year were $0.35, as the company raised it again. For the second half of calendar 2010 (presented as 2011 above), it was raised to $0.38, and Altria has not had any other non-standard raises since then.
