McDonald's beefs up its shareholder dividend by 10 percent

There are not many public companies, large or small, that are rolling in cash. Fewer want to send that money back to their shareholders. A number of America's largest corporations have billions of dollars on their balance sheets and this has caused people who own the stocks to complain. What does Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) need with over $20 billion in cash and short-term investments when it makes well over $1 billion each quarter? That cash won't go toward M&A. Apple never buys anything.

McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) is at the other end of the spectrum from Apple. It has built an effective mechanism for getting money back to shareholders through stock buy-backs and dividend increases. The company has a healthy 3.6 percent yield, and on September 24 it increased its dividend by 10 percent to $.55 cents a share.