By Chris Taylor NEW YORK (Reuters) - If there is a stock market superhero these days, it is the humble dividend. The companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index doled out a record $281.5 billion in dividends in 2012, and payouts in 2013 are slated to rise even higher.

MINNEAPOLIS - Delta Air Lines Inc. says it will start paying a quarterly dividend and buy back some of its shares — investor-friendly moves that are common in other industries but rare for airlines. Delta said on Wednesday that it will pay a quarterly dividend of 6 cents per share starting Sept. 10. If it keeps paying a dividend of that size, the yield would be 1.3 per cent per year.

US stocks moved higher Monday amid mixed earnings reports, bouncing back after last week's losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 19.66 (0.14 percent) to 14,567.17. The broad-based S&P 500 added 7.25 (0.47 percent) to 1,562.50, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 27.50 (0.86 percent) to 3,233.55. Some analysts said stocks were poised to rally after the major indexes last week lost more than 2 percent amid mediocre corporate earnings.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Nvidia Corp plans to return $1 billion (649.5 million pounds) to shareholders this fiscal year via dividend payments and share buybacks, the company said in a Thursday announcement that helped its shares trim earlier losses. Shares in the chipmaker slid as much as 4 percent after it told investors at its annual analysts' day that it expects its mobile processor business to remain flat this year. They recovered after the buyback news, and were down just 0.5 percent at $12.77 in the afternoon.