Income investors love dividend stocks, but they also know they can't just pick any dividend-paying company. The most reliable companies find ways to pay steadily rising dividends year in and year out over the long run.
Many investors track dividend stocks by whether they make annual increases to their payouts, and knowing this, companies often make dividend increases at around the same time every year. So far in 2019, Visa (NYSE: V), Nike (NYSE: NKE), and Cintas (NASDAQ: CTAS) haven't yet delivered a dividend hike to their shareholders, but based on past practices, you can expect to see a payout boost sometime between now and the end of December.
Visa isn't exactly the best example of a strong dividend stock, with a current yield that's well below 1%. But the payment processor and credit card giant has still put together a track record of raising its dividends, with 11 straight years of higher payouts. Its most recent hike came last November, with a 19% rise to its current quarterly distribution of $0.25 per share.