There have been a lot of dividends increases from big, brand-name companies with excess cash on their books and Mitchell Clark, contributor to popular financial e-newsletter Profit Confidential, believes this will continue. New business investment is somewhat lagging given all the risks in the marketplace, so Clark thinks its much easier for companies to increase their dividends and/or initiate new stock market buybacks.

In the recent Profit Confidential article, Dividend Increases Soar as Companies Return Excess Cash, Clark notes that the U.S. economy isnt accelerating. For the most part, however, investor sentiment in the stock market remains positive, according to Clark, and the corporate news is mostly good enough for institutional investors to be buying.

This is what they are buyinglarge-cap companies with increasing dividends, says Clark.

Clark lists several firms with increased dividends, including IBM, Johnson & Johnson, American Express Company, DuPont, ExxonMobil Corporation, and Procter & Gamble Co.

This makes the S&P 500 Index appropriately valued at 1,400, says Clark. If the economic news holds relatively positive, we just might get another 10% in price appreciation from the stock market this year.

Clark thinks that retail shares are a great indicator for the health of the U.S. economy.

As illustrated in the latest GDP report, consumer spending kept the numbers alive, says Clark. Retail stocks dont tend to pay dividends, but they obviously represent the consumer, who remains a very large part of the U.S. economy.

Going forward, Clark thinks were just going to get more of the samemixed news on the economy and more dividends increases from big-cap companies.

Its not full steam ahead, but low and slow, says Clark.

Profit Confidential, which has been published for over a decade now, has been widely recognized as predicting five major economic events over the past 10 years. In 2002, Profit Confidential started advising its readers to buy gold-related investments when gold traded under $300 an ounce. In 2006, it begged its readers to get out of the housing market...before it plunged.

Profit Confidential was among the first (back in late 2006) to predict that the U.S. economy would be in a recession by late 2007. The daily e-letter correctly predicted the crash in the stock market of 2008 and early 2009. And Profit Confidential turned bullish on stocks in March of 2009 and rode the bear market rally from a Dow Jones Industrial Average of 6,440 on March 9, 2009, to 12,876 on May 2, 2011, a gain of 99%.

To see the full article and to learn more about Profit Confidential, visit www.profitconfidential.com.

Profit Confidential is Lombardi Publishing Corporations free daily investment e-letter. Written by financial gurus with over 100 years of combined investing experience, Profit Confidential analyzes and comments on the actions of the stock market, precious metals, interest rates, real estate, and the economy. Lombardi Publishing Corporation, founded in 1986, now with over one million customers in 141 countries, is one of the largest consumer information publishers in the world. For more on Lombardi, and to get the popular Profit Confidential e-letter sent to you daily, visit www.profitconfidential.com.

Michael Lombardi, MBA, the lead Profit Confidential editorial contributor, has just released his most recent update of Critical Warning Number Six, a breakthrough video with Lombardis current predictions for the U.S. economy, stock market, U.S. dollar, euro, interest rates and inflation. To see the video, visit http://www.profitconfidential.com/critical-warning-number-six.