Investors Wait for BofA Dividend Hike and 2 Other Heavily Traded Stocks

Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC):

The firm lowered its dividend by 98 percent when the housing bubble popped in 2008, and since then regulatory oversight and financial stress tests have kept the annual payouts down at only 4 cents per share for a 0.3 percent dividend yield. However, Motley Fool now says that recent rumblings imply that the Fed might allow the bank to raise its dividends once again. Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) was permitted to increase its payouts as soon as 2011 and has quadrupled its dividend rates during the last three years, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) multiplied its payout by a factor of five in 2011. These increases strongly suggest that the largest banks aren’t necessarily too big to succeed. The most recent time Wells Fargo boosted its payout, the news sent BofA shares up nearly by 2 percent.