I've been a dividend growth investor for more than a decade. What's dividend growth investing all about? Well, it's a strategy that advocates buying and holding shares in world-class enterprises that pay reliable, rising cash dividends. This is highly intuitive when you think about it.

Why invest in a company that isn't profitable? And why invest in a company that doesn't share profit with the owners? This strategy is basically a custom fit for financial independence and even early retirement. If you want to achieve financial independence, you need a sustainable source of growing passive income. Investments that don't offer income? Forget about it. The last thing you'd want to do is work for many years, build up a war chest of assets, and then have to sell off those assets to cover your bills. You run the risk of running out of money.

I now want to tell you about three dividend stocks, possibly the best stocks to buy now, that are now laying more golden eggs, because they just increased their dividends. Let's dig in.

The first dividend increase I want to tell you about came from American Tower Corp. - stock ticker AMT. Only 2.5%? That might seem like a bummer in comparison to their five-year dividend growth rate of 19.1%. But here's a little secret. That means this dividend increase is likely just the start of a few more to come this year.

And with their towers being critical to the rollout and function of 5G, they're almost certainly just getting started. The stock doesn't look extremely cheap here. But after the big pullback from $270/share, it now looks reasonably valued. The next dividend increase I want to share with you came from General Dynamics Corporation - stock ticker GD.

What's better than golden eggs? More golden eggs. And that's exactly what you're getting here with this powerhouse of a defense company. The dividend continues to grow like clockwork. And that comes on top of the stock's yield of 2.75%.

Even after going on a bit of a run since then, the stock still looks pretty attractive right now. That's even more true after this nice dividend bump.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to tell you about the massive dividend increase that came from L3Harris Technologies Inc. - stock ticker LHX.

This is the easiest 20% income increase shareholders will ever see in their lives. After all, the only thing L3Harris Technologies shareholders had to do to receive the dividend increase was to hold shares.

This kind of sustainability and consistency makes it the kind of stock that can be a core holding in a portfolio for someone who wants to make sure their dividend income continues to flow and grow. And the huge dividend growth that this company has become known for comes attached to a pretty decent current yield of 2.1%.

L3Harris Technologies is one of my favorite businesses in sovereign defense. And the sovereign defense is one of my favorite areas of the market right now. The long-term opportunity here is tremendous. If your portfolio could use some exposure to a forward-facing defense firm investing in space and military communications, consider taking a good look at L3Harris Technologies.

Video Length: 00:06:51