The markets remained nervous last week as several companies such as State Street, Macy’s and Motorola cut or eliminated their dividend payments. Of those three, seasoned dividend investors should only be concerned with State Street’s dividend cut. During economic downturns it is normal for cyclical industries to cut or eliminate their dividends. Companies with strong competitive advantages, as well as solid consumer brands should keep and even increase their dividends. The companies whose dividend cuts are concerning are the ones which have raised them for more than 10 or 25 years, which represent the so called dividend achievers and dividend aristocrats. This week brought two raises by dividend aristocrats as well as three notable raises from dividend achievers.

General Electric kept reassuring investors that it had sufficient cash flows to pay its dividend and that its AAA rating won’t be lost anytime soon. Over the past few months, anytime GE reassures investors about the stability of its current dividend payment, the news hits the wires and the trading in the common shares gets pretty volatile. The diversified global infrastructure, finance and media company has taken steps to strengthen its cash flow situation by raising almost two thirds of its required long-term funding for 2009, and reducing GE Capital Services commercial paper by 28 billion to 60 billion today.

Avon Products (AVP), which engages in the manufacture and marketing of beauty and related products worldwide, announced that its Board has approved a 5% increase in its quarterly dividend from $0.20 to $0.21 per common share. Avon Products is a dividend achiever, which has consistently increased its dividends for twenty consecutive years.