The Dividend Daily

The markets closed right near the highs of the day as buyers were happy to see the market pull up and away from the attention-grabbing Dow 10K levels.

Volume finished on the light side once again with 4.46 Billion shares on the NYSE and over 1.93 Billion shares traded over on the NASDAQ. Wall Street analysts did their part today with some timely upgrades, lifting shares of Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), And Radio Shack (RSH). Wynn Resorts (WYNN) also announced it was paying a special one-time $4 dividend as well as beginning quarterly dividend payouts. We’re glad to have this company in our dividend database (Starbucks, Cisco, Dell next?).

Some of the big dividend winners also included shares of Tupperware (TUP), Carbo Ceramics (CRR) – which has been on a recent tear, as well as Blackrock (BLK). There was little in the way of weakness today,, but Gap Inc. (GPS) finished slightly lower on an analyst downgrade. Education plays DeVry (DV) and Strayer Education (STRA) were down on a negative Barrons article this past weekend focusing on competitor Apollo Group (APOL), hurting that particular sector.

We made some changes to our “recommended” list earlier, so be sure to check out that post if you did not read the e-mail alert we sent out earlier.

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks, as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here.