The indicated yield for the tech sector now stands at 1.9%, higher than the indicated yields for the consumer discretionary or financial services sectors, observes Beth Piskora, of S&P Capital IQ in The Outlook.

In fact, tech contributed 15.4% of the overall yield of the S&P 500 as of August 31, up from only 10.3% at the end of 2011. As a sector, it contributes more yield to the S&P 500 than any other sector.

That is, perhaps, not surprising, as it is also the biggest sector (from a market cap perspective) in the S&P 500. However, as recently as 2011, tech was only the sixth largest contributor to yield of the ten sectors.

The yield for the tech sector now perfectly matches the yield on the S&P 500 Growth style index (1.9%), still slightly lower than the yield on the S&P 500 as a whole (2.2%).

Twenty-nine stocks in the S&P 500 technology sector initiated or boosted dividends this year (through August 31).

Of the 29 tech stocks with higher dividends now than at the end of last year, 12 are ranked strong buy or buy by S&P Capital IQ analysts.

They are listed below:

  • Altera (ALTR)—yielding 1.7%

 

  • Apple (AAPL)—yielding 2.5%

 

  • Applied Materials (AMAT)—yielding 2.6%

 

  • Cisco (CSCO)—yielding 2.9%

 

  • EMC Corp. (EMC)—yielding 1.5%

 

  • International Business Machines (IBM)—yielding 2.0%

 

  • KLA-Tencor (KLAC)—yielding 3.2%

 

  • Microchip Technology (MCHP)—yielding 3.6%

 

  • Oracle (ORCL)—yielding 1.5%

 

  • Qualcomm (QCOM)—yielding 2.1%

 

  • Texas Instruments (TXN)—yielding 2.9%

 

  • Xilinx (XLNX)—yielding 2.3%

 

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