You're staring at an index near highs and wondering where the actual income opportunities are hiding.
Three of them showed up this week across midstream energy, a Southeast regulated utility marked down on rate-case noise, and a large-cap biotech that just proved its patent-cliff obituary was premature.
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Technology
Accenture Is Taking Its New Mid-Market Strategy Deeper Into Japan
Accenture plc (NYSE: ACN) has agreed to acquire Tokyo-based COMWARE, adding more than 180 professionals and deeper SAP, CRM, and manufacturing expertise to Accenture Edge, its new business aimed at Japan’s mid-market companies.
The target matters because Edge only launched in June. Trace the strategy forward, and you reach a clear objective: give smaller companies more packaged access to the AI, cloud, data, and core-system capabilities Accenture already sells to larger enterprises.
COMWARE Brings More Than Headcount
COMWARE has spent more than 25 years working on core business systems, with experience across discrete manufacturing, chemicals, and food. Its long SAP relationship also gives Accenture implementation knowledge built specifically around Japanese companies.
Your clearest clue is the customer base. Accenture is not simply adding another consulting team; it is buying relationships and delivery capabilities that can help Edge reach companies needing faster, more standardized technology projects.
Mid-Market Is Becoming a Bigger Strategy
Accenture has been expanding in the mid-market through acquisitions, with management pointing to faster revenue conversion and a higher volume of smaller deals. COMWARE gives that strategy a stronger local operating base in Japan.
Once those capabilities sit inside Edge, you have a broader Accenture than the one built mainly around giant enterprise transformations. The company is creating another growth lane around smaller clients, repeatable solutions, and quicker technology upgrades.
ACN currently trades at $188 and pays a dividend of $6.52 per share, a yield of 3.46%.
Payments
Visa Just Added a New Country to Its Global Payments Reach
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) has completed its first live international card transaction in Syria, working with Lebanon’s Fransabank as the country begins reconnecting with global financial networks after decades of restrictions.
One transaction is small, but follow what comes after it, and you reach the larger opportunity. Visa intends to make foreign-issued cards usable across Syria as more local businesses become connected to international payment infrastructure.
Acceptance Is the Bigger Opportunity
Hotels, restaurants, retailers, and other businesses represent potential new acceptance points as Syria rebuilds its financial links. Visa already connects more than 150 million merchant locations across over 200 countries and territories.
Think about the opportunity through your everyday card experience. Visa does not need to own Syrian banks or merchants; it benefits by providing the network that connects international cardholders with businesses joining digital payments.
The Network Can Expand From Here
Broader adoption still requires stronger banking relationships, compliance systems, governance, and cybersecurity. The first live payment nevertheless proves Visa’s network can now operate in a market that had remained largely disconnected.
As acceptance spreads beyond the initial transaction, you get the real measure of the expansion: how quickly Visa can turn technical access into another active market generating payment volume across its global network.
V currently trades at $380 and pays a dividend of $2.68 per share, a yield of 0.70%.
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Financial Services
Apollo Is Putting Nearly $10 Billion in One of America’s Largest Private Aviation Networks
Apollo-managed funds have acquired a significant interest in Atlantic Aviation in a transaction valuing the company at nearly $10 billion. KKR will remain a substantial shareholder, having owned the aviation infrastructure business since 2021.
Put the valuation beside Atlantic’s nationwide footprint, and you begin to understand the attraction. Apollo is gaining exposure to aircraft fueling, hangar leasing, and other essential services used by corporate and general aviation customers.
The Airports Are the Valuable Part
Atlantic operates across high-activity airfields and holds long-term airport concession agreements, giving the business infrastructure positions that are difficult for competitors to reproduce. KKR has expanded that network through acquisitions and organic growth.
Look past the private jets and your attention lands on those concessions. Apollo is buying into physical infrastructure connected to airports where access, location, and long-term operating rights can carry substantial value.
Infrastructure Is Becoming a Bigger Apollo Business
Apollo has originated more than $155 billion of infrastructure transactions and financings during the past five years across transportation, energy, digital, and industrial markets. Atlantic adds another large transportation platform to that activity.
Follow that capital across Apollo’s recent infrastructure push, and you arrive at a broader strategy. Atlantic Aviation gives the firm another long-duration platform where essential assets and recurring services can support growth well beyond the initial transaction.
APO currently trades at $134 and pays a dividend of $2.25 per share, a yield of 1.67%.
Dividend Stocks Worth Watching
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE: ET)
If you want the highest-yielding name in this batch, ET is where to look. The midstream operator yields around 6.4% and just delivered a catalyst you didn't see coming: Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $25 from $23, and the Q2 distribution of $0.34 per unit was paid August 19, an increase of more than 3% versus the second quarter of 2025.
This isn't a spot-price story. It's a multi-year volume story. Your payout has now been raised for four straight years, and coverage remains healthy enough to keep funding the next step-up out of operating cash flow.
Your action: build on any broad energy pullback, not into strength. The next ex-date on November 9 with a November 19 payment is worth stalking.
Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK)
Blue-chip utilities rarely go on sale. DUK has drifted off its 52-week high on rate-case noise in the Carolinas. That's the kind of dip you want in a regulated utility with a 4%+ yield and a rate base compounding at 7-9% annually thanks to Southeast data center demand.
Duke's Carolinas service territory is one of the fastest-growing data center corridors in the country. Every megawatt of new load is a rate base add. The dividend has been raised 17 consecutive years.
Your action: dollar-cost average here if you want a defensive core position. Rate-case overhangs usually resolve on schedule, and you're being paid to wait.
AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV)
Remember when everyone said the Humira patent cliff would kill AbbVie's dividend growth? It didn't. Skyrizi and Rinvoq are running at a combined annual pace that already covers the Humira decline, and the board hiked the dividend for the 12th consecutive year as an independent company.
The yield sits in the mid-2% range, backed by a payout that has more than quadrupled since the Abbott spin-off. Aesthetics is soft and neuroscience is a slow burn, but the immunology franchise is doing the heavy lifting.
Your action: if you want big-cap biotech exposure without the binary risk of a single-drug story, ABBV is one of the cleanest setups in healthcare. Let it come to you on a pullback rather than paying up near the highs.
Dividend Increases
Nordson (NDSN) raised its quarterly dividend 15% to $0.94 per share, extending its streak to 63 consecutive years of annual increases.
Intuit (INTU) approved a 15% increase to $1.38 per share, payable October 16 to holders of record October 8.
Altria (MO) hiked its quarterly payout 4.7% to $1.11 per share, payable October 9 to holders of record September 15.
EastGroup Properties (EGP) lifted its quarterly dividend 12.9% to $1.75 per share, payable October 15 to holders of record September 30.
Dividend Decreases
Embecta (EMBC) slashed its quarterly dividend 93% to $0.01 per share to help fund the Owen Mumford acquisition.
Prospect Capital (PSEC) cut its monthly distribution again, taking it below the prior $0.045 per share rate.
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Trivia: Coca-Cola is one of Berkshire Hathaway's most famous long-term holdings. How long has Coca-Cola been paying dividends, and what has Berkshire's yield-on-cost grown to on its original investment?
- Since 1962 — Berkshire's yield-on-cost on its original investment is approximately 25%
- Since 1919 — Berkshire now earns more in annual dividends than it paid for the entire position
- Since 1893 — Berkshire's yield-on-cost on its 1988 stake now exceeds 60%
- Since 1945 — Berkshire paid $1.3 billion for its stake and now collects over $700 million per year
Upcoming Dividend Payers
McDonald's (MCD) trades ex-dividend September 1 for its $1.86 quarterly payout, payable September 16.
Lockheed Martin (LMT) trades ex-dividend September 1 for its $3.45 quarterly dividend, payable September 25.
Schlumberger (SLB) trades ex-dividend September 2 for its $0.295 quarterly dividend, payable October 8.
Home Depot (HD) trades ex-dividend September 3 for its $2.33 quarterly payout, payable September 17.
Everything Else
🚀 Leadership in the market rarely stays concentrated forever. These 7 stocks could be next, showing the expanding cash flows and market share that define the next cycle's leaders.
⛏️ Harmony Gold declared a record annual dividend after profit jumped 87%, helped by stronger gold prices despite lower production.
🧪 Solstice Advanced Materials authorized its first $500 million buyback after scrapping its planned merger with Element Solutions and reaffirming its growth outlook.
🏦 Royal Bank, TD and CIBC all beat quarterly estimates as stronger capital-markets and wealth-management earnings reinforced the resilience of Canada’s largest banks.
💳 TD Bank reported a record wholesale profit as trading, underwriting and lending activity drove a sharp increase in quarterly earnings.
🥃 Pernod Ricard’s high dividend payout is coming under scrutiny as weaker sales and elevated debt increase pressure on management to preserve cash.
That’s all for today’s edition of the Dividend Brief.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any feedback or dividend stocks you want me to take a look at, just reply to this email!
—Noah Zelvis
DividendBrief.com
