USA Today
Gannett, the owner of newspapers including USA Today, raised its quarterly payout this year to 20 cents a share from 8 cents, lifting the McLean, Virginia-based company's yield to 5.33 percent. The stock has risen 67 percent since Oct. 3 including dividends, compared with a gain of 0.03 percent for Treasuries, data compiled by Bloomberg and Bank of America Corp. show.
Leggett & Platt, the Carthage, Missouri-based maker of bedding and chair components, is yielding double its average since 1980, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The stock has returned 23 percent since Oct. 3, including dividends.
Shares rallied on April 12 after Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen and New York Fed President William C. Dudley endorsed the view that borrowing costs will stay low through 2014. It's "still too soon to conclude that we are out of the woods," Dudley said on April 12 at Syracuse University.
While the economy is still recovering, stocks are attractive, according to Byron Wien, the New York-based vice chairman of the advisory services unit at Blackstone Group LP, the world's biggest private-equity firm.
"The low interest rate environment is the attempt by the Fed to encourage faster growth and therefore lower unemployment," Wien said in a phone interview on April 10. "The question is can the economy develop a natural momentum on its own, and that question is still open."