San Francisco-based Wells Fargo hiked its quarterly 10%, to 34 cents a share from 31 cents. The dividend is payable Sept. 1 to holders of record Aug. 8, and the ex-date is Aug. 6. Payouts, which at the new rate are worth $4.5 billion annually, give the stock a current yield of 4.88%. The bank has paid dividends continuously since 1939. Wells Fargo's dividends have risen at a 15% compound annual rate since 1988. With reinvested dividends taken into account, the bank's stock has produced a total return of 67% over the past 10 years. While second-quarter profits fell 23% from those a year earlier, to $1.75 billion, or 53 cents a share, they exceeded analysts' average estimate of 50 cents. The earnings and dividend news sent the stock soaring nearly 33% Wednesday, to 27.23 on the Big Board.

In Detroit, General Motors said that eliminating its 25-cents-a-share quarterly common dividend (slashed from 50 cents in February 2006) will save it some $800 million through 2009. GM also will cut employment and other costs by 20%, and raise $4 billion to $7 billion via asset sales and other measures. CEO Rick Wagoner said that these actions, "combined with those of the past several years, position us not only to survive this tough period in the U.S., but to come out of it as a lean, strong and successful company." A Dow Jones Industrials component, GM, priced at 13 a share, is at a 50-year low. Our cover story said the stock was a good bet for long-term investors, but that it should be bought only by those with the stomach to handle sharp ups and downs until the fruits of GM's new labor agreement appear in 2010. So far, investors have seen only the downs.

In January it initiated quarterly dividends at the rate of 50 cents per ADR. B&B declared its latest dividend at that rate last week, but what makes it worth mentioning in this column is the heftiness of its yield. Its ADRs, which change hands around 10 -- less than half their 52-week high -- are yielding 20%, even though the company's operations seem sound, and it has a $30 million stock buyback program. B&B laments that its ADRs have traded down in line with U.S. airline and crude-oil woes, although most of its fleet is leased outside the U.S., and its leases average six years.

A medical-instrumentation and biotech outfit, Daxor resumed dividends Monday at 25 cents a share quarterly after a 12-year hiatus. The respective payment, record and ex dates are Aug. 27, July 28 and July 24. Trading on the Amex near its 52-week high of 19, the stock yields 5.82%. Because more than 60% of Daxor's adjusted ordinary gross income comes from investments, and its CEO owns over 50% of the stock, it qualifies as a personal holding company. A PHC is taxed on its undistributed PHC income at a 15% rate.