Kellogg brightens your morning with earnings and a dividend increase

Cereal maker Kellogg (NYSE: K) issued its Q1 earnings today, and while it may not have been the most exciting event on Earth, it did beat expectations, according to Briefing.com.

The strong dollar benefited the top line, as net sales increased 10% (stripping out the effect of the strong dollar yields a top-line growth rate closer to 5%). Operating profit advanced 9%. Unfortunately, not much was happening on the bottom line -- earnings per diluted share only gained a penny, coming in at $0.81 (there was a better tax situation in last year's similar quarter, however). Not much took place in the area of cash flow either -- free cash flow declined to $181 million; last year at this time, the breakfast guru reported $289 million in free cash.

Still, Kellogg's management seems pretty confident in the company's future prospects as it saw fit to bestow a 10% dividend increase on shareholders. And going back to the expectations game, earnings came in $0.05 more than expected -- that's excellent. Kellogg, like General Mills (NYSE: GIS) and Kraft (NYSE: KFT), is a great idea for long-term dollar-cost-averaging and dividend-reinvesting (love those hyphenates!). Just don't expect tech-like growth, and do expect bumps along the way, especially with commodity prices acting as they have been.

Disclosure: I own none of the companies mentioned here; positions can change at any time.