Last week I released the first part of this series entitled " Q3 Growth Report - Part 1 ". In that post I presented some of the data compiled by our Alert HQ processes. The focus was on Revenue and earnings per share. I contrasted 2009 Q1 and Q2 results with our recent Q3 results. In this post, I'll do the same with dividends. Increasing Dividends -- For today's purposes, I'll highlight the companies that managed to increase dividends this quarter. The following table provides the comparison among the three quarters: Q1-2009 Q2-2009 Q3-2009 In S&P 500 140 112 104 All stocks 829 778 826 The number of stocks in the S&P 500 that increased their dividend and have made it onto Part 2 of this quarter’s report has decreased yet again though only by a little. More encouraging, the number of stocks that raised their dividend is up by more than 6%. Note that we are looking at a universe of roughly 7000 stocks. Repeat winners -- There w