15 Low-Debt Dividend Stocks With Impressive Profitability

Company debt is always important to keep in mind when evaluating stocks because debt is a wedge between firm value and the firm’s value to shareholders. When company debt reaches high levels, it diverts money away from shareholders (away from dividends) and towards higher interest payments. Therefore high debt can threaten a company’s dividend yield.We ran a screen on dividend stocks (paying dividend yields above 2% and sustainable payout ratios below 35%) with low debt (most recent quarter total debt to assets below 0.2). We screened this universe for companies that have beaten their industry peers on trailing-twelve-month gross, operating, and pretax margins. Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the top six stocks mentioned below. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research. Your browser does not support iframes. We also created a price-weighted index of the stocks mentioned below,... Read more