Three Dividend Hikes Worth Calling Home About

A grocer, a steakhouse chain, and a 36-year dividend payer all bumped their distributions in the same stretch.

Below: what the hikes mean, three names worth adding to your watchlist, and the ex-dates you do not want to miss in early July.

Tech Energy (Sponsored)

Could New Power Systems Reshape Energy Markets?

Energy infrastructure is under pressure as demand accelerates across AI, industrial, and defense sectors.

New technologies designed to improve power reliability and speed of deployment are attracting increased attention.

Investors are beginning to track suppliers connected to this evolving space.

A new briefing explains the broader opportunity.

See the full story now.

Manufacturing

Is Applied Materials About to Become the Most Important Company in AI Nobody Talks About?

Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) just revealed six new chipmaking systems designed specifically for AI hardware production. The products target memory chips and advanced chip packaging, two areas where demand is growing faster than the industry can currently produce.

Every major chipmaker in the world depends on Applied Materials' equipment to build the components that power artificial intelligence. No chips get made without machines. Applied Materials makes the machines.

The Picks and Shovels of the AI Gold Rush

NVIDIA designs the chips. TSMC manufactures them. But before any of that happens, Applied Materials builds the equipment that enables manufacturing. Every breakthrough in chip design eventually requires new manufacturing technology to produce it.

That puts Applied Materials upstream of every company in the AI supply chain. When your machines are required before a single chip can be made, the entire industry depends on what you build next.

Six Products at Once Is Not Normal

Most equipment companies launch one or two new systems at a time. Applied Materials dropped six simultaneously, all targeting AI-specific manufacturing challenges. That pace signals the company sees a demand wave large enough to justify accelerating its entire product roadmap at once.

You watch a company go from steady industrial supplier to racing to keep up with the biggest technology buildout in history, and the transformation is happening in real time.

AMAT currently trades at $628 and pays a dividend of $2.12 per share, a yield of 0.34%.

Pharma

AbbVie Just Fired a $10.9 Billion Shot Into Immunology

AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) is buying Apogee Therapeutics for $10.9 billion, adding a new inflammatory disease pipeline to one of its most important businesses. The deal gives AbbVie a drug candidate being developed for eczema, asthma, and other immune-related conditions, with a dosing schedule that could be far less frequent than that of some existing treatments.

AbbVie Is Buying Future Defense

Immunology is still AbbVie’s strongest battlefield, but relying too heavily on a few big drugs can become risky over time. Apogee gives the company another asset that fits its existing sales muscle, payer relationships, and launch experience.

Follow the deal past the headline price, and you find AbbVie trying to protect tomorrow’s growth before today’s winners face heavier pressure. That is why this looks like an offensive move, not a patch job.

Convenience Could Become the Edge

Apogee’s lead treatment could eventually compete in large disease markets where patients often stay on therapy for years. Fewer injections can matter because chronic treatment is not only about results, it is also about how easily patients can live with the medicine.

That puts your attention on the business impact. If AbbVie can turn convenience into adoption, the deal gives it more than another pipeline asset. The company is trying to make sure its next chapter is bought early, built around scale, and ready before the current cycle starts to fade.

ABBV currently trades at $240 and pays a dividend of $6.92 per share, a yield of 2.88%.

Risk Signal (Sponsored)

Emmy-winning analyst releases his next big story

Whitney Tilson shocked the nation on 60 Minutes when he accused a major company of poisoning its customers.

The investigation won an Emmy and the stock fell nearly 80%.

(He also called the housing crisis and the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers).

Now, he's releasing his next big story.

He says a dangerous pattern is forming, and most Americans have no idea how exposed they really are.

For the full presentation, go here.

Infrastructure

Qualcomm Broke Into the Data Center Race With Meta

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) has landed Meta as the first major customer for its new Dragonfly C1000 data center CPU, marking a major step outside the company’s traditional smartphone stronghold. The multi-generation supply agreement puts Qualcomm chips inside Meta’s next server fleet, with production expected to begin in the second half of 2028.

Meta Gives the Push Credibility

Qualcomm has long been known for mobile chips, but data centers are a different stage. A first customer like Meta gives the new business line instant validation and makes the server push feel more commercial than experimental.

Open Qualcomm’s next growth map and you find the real shift: the company is trying to move from powering devices in people’s hands to powering the systems behind the internet itself.

Phones Are No Longer Enough

Smartphone demand can be cyclical, and Qualcomm has been seeking larger growth avenues in autos, connected devices, and now data centers. Meta gives the company a path into a market where customers buy at scale and plan infrastructure for years.

If the rollout stays on track, you may see Qualcomm take on a more valuable role in enterprise infrastructure. The company would no longer be just a mobile chip leader; it would compete for space in the data centers powering the next wave of digital demand.

QCOM currently trades at $208.00 and pays a dividend of $3.68 per share, a yield of 1.76%.

Donaldson Company (DCI) raised its quarterly dividend to $0.32 from $0.30, an increase of 6.7%. The new yield comes in around the mid-1% range, but it extends a dividend growth streak few industrials can match.

Jefferies Financial Group (JEF) declared a quarterly dividend of $0.40 per share. The yield is not the main reason to own it, but the higher payout adds support while capital markets activity improves.

Enterprise Financial Services (EFSC) bumped its quarterly payment to $0.34 from $0.33. The raise is modest, but the bank continues to stack small dividend increases while keeping the payout manageable.

Amrize (AMRZ) is the only stock-specific name worth flagging this week. The company previously paid a $0.44 special, one-time dividend tied to its spin-off structure, while current dividend data now shows no regular trailing payout. This is not a clean recurring dividend cut in the usual sense, but it is a reminder that newly spun-off companies do not always carry over the income profile investors expect.

China Tightens Supply (Sponsored)

Elon Musk Warned: “This Is Not Good”

Silver sits inside some of the world’s most important growth markets — from Tesla batteries and AI chips to medical devices and defense systems.

Now China’s silver export restrictions are putting a key supply chain under pressure.

If demand keeps rising while supply tightens, investors may want to understand the setup before the next price spike.

Download the Silver Report free

Everything Else

•  🛢️ Oil prices are still moving around Middle East risk as Iran, Hormuz, OPEC, and Iraq keep the crude market on edge.

• 🏗️ Anthropic is pushing deeper into global data centers as AI firms race to secure more compute capacity.

• 🧾 India’s Rajesh Exports is under investigation over accounting irregularities tied to Valcambi, putting pressure on the gold business.

• 💻 Italy’s regulator is probing Microsoft over a Microsoft 365 price hike, adding another antitrust headache to the software giant.

• 🤖 The Trump administration reportedly asked OpenAI to stagger a new model release, putting policy pressure back on the AI rollout.