growth

Increased dividend to $0.21 from $0.19 for shareholders of record on October 16.

This fast food chain should be able to impress investors and analysts alike when it announces earnings on October 6.

Headquartered in Louisville, Ky., Yum! declared an 11% boost in its quarterly common payout, to 21 cents a share from 19 cents. That means $37.3 million more on investors' plates annually. Disbursement is set for Nov. 6 to stockholders on the fast-food chain's books Oct. 16. The ex-dividend date is Oct. 14. The company has now more than quadrupled dividends since initiating them in May '04 at an adjusted nickel a share, and sweetened them every year. Yum!, whose top franchises include KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Long John Silver's, added another treat: a $300 million stock buyback, even though it had said at year-end 2008 that it wouldn't do any repurchases this year. Chief executive David C. Novak said, "Yum!'s global growth potential, consistent performance and track record of generating strong free cash flow give us the confidence and ability to return significant cash to our shareholders even in these challenging economic times." Indeed, Yum! has returned over $1 billion in cash dividends to investors to date. Share buybacks, meanwhile, have put more than $6 billion in their pockets the past 10 years.

food

"The key issue to focus on in the next four months is top-line revenue growth," says David Kostin, Goldman Sachs' chief U.S. strategist. Since peaking at $91 a share in mid-2007, S&P 500 profits have suffered the worst contraction since the Great Depression, falling 53%. During this stretch, companies have cut jobs, slashed fixed costs and amassed considerable operating leverage that can come in handy when revenue grows again. Kostin thinks companies exposed to the faster-growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China are better positioned to deliver such growth. To that end, Goldman has flagged a basket of 50 U.S. stocks with the highest percentage of sales to these BRIC countries. The selection includes Sohu.com (ticker: SOHU), Marvell Technology (MRVL), Mylan Laboratories (MYL), Pfizer (PFE), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Yum! Brands (YUM).

Because Americans tend to love saturated fat

china

Others are showing signs of coming to life after a vicious beatdown, including SanDisk (SNDK) -- I still don't think there was that big a deal there -- Yum! Brands (YUM), Abbott Labs (ABT), Best Buy (BBY), Corning (GLW) and Verizon (VZ).

I like food business.defensive

because i worked for them in IT and they outsourced are jobs to India

no reason

i know it is silly, but I once dated a lady that thought she was a big shot in the Corporation and in life!

poor dividend yield

TacoBell does have the best Rat Taco in the restaurant biz.

Eateries volatile and 'same store sales' seems a difficult measurement.