This High-Yield Dividend Portfolio Will Beat the Market

Twenty weeks ago, I invested my cold hard cash into 10 high-yield dividend stocks I believe will beat the market. Let's see the results so far: [...] Over the past month, the S&P rose 2.6%. As the market rose, our portfolio outperformance dropped, moving from outperforming the market by 7 percentage points to beating it by roughly 4.5 percentage points. While outperformance is always good, it should be taken with a grain of salt. We're investing for the long term, and it's only been 20 weeks. I firmly believe the results will bear us out. Movers & shakers Of our stocks, the biggest mover in the portfolio the past month was Bristol-Myers Squibb, which rose 5.38% (after adjusting for the dividend). The main reason for the rise was a June 23 press release announcing that Pfizer (NYSE:... more

3 Dividend Payers on My Radar

Now don't get me wrong: These companies are the exception, not the rule. Very few companies actually keep growing at market-beating rates once they get to a certain size. However, I've found several stocks that I think you should take a closer look at. Choosing Dividend AristocratsAll three of the stocks I've chosen below qualify as Dividend Aristocrats. As Standard & Poor's defines them, Dividend Aristocrats are companies that have boosted their dividends for 25 straight years. This is a stellar feat, because earnings must be raised in line with dividends in order for this type of history to be sustainable. Companies that pay out increasing dividends must be mindful of their capital spending if they want to grow despite paying out a portion of their earnings -- and that's exactly what... more

Potential Dividend Growth for 5 Large Pharmaceutical Companies: 2011 to 2015

The five large pharmaceutical companies that I follow are Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Eli Lilly (LLY), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Merck (MRK) and Pfizer (PFE). Each is facing patent expirations that will limit sales, earnings and dividend growth over the 2011-15 period. Anticipation of this has compressed price earnings ratios and produced historically high dividend yields. Here are my projections for sales, EPS and DPS (dividends per share) for the 2011-15 period. The dividend yields which range from 3.4% to 5.2% have caught the attention of dividend-driven investors as they compare very favorably to the 3.0% yield of the 10-year treasury note. These yields are even more compelling if you share my view that interest rates are destined to rise so that there is the potential for a decline in... more

14 High Dividend Growth Stocks Reporting Earnings This Month

If you like to follow the earnings roster, here are some names you might want to put on your watchlist. Here we report 14 dividend stocks (paying dividend yields above 2%) that are seeing high dividend growth comparing the trailing-twelve-month dividend to the current year’s dividend estimate. These stocks are also reporting quarterly earnings in the month of July. We also controlled for sustainable payout ratios below 35%.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 even created a price-weighted index of the stocks mentioned below, and monitored the performance of the list relative to the S&P 500 index... more

Dividend Stock Idea Of The Day Franklin Resources (NYSE: BEN)

Dividend Stock Ideas by Dividend Yields - Stock, Capital Investment. Our Dividend Idea of the day is the global investment group Franklin Resources (NYSE:BEN). The current dividend yield amounts to 0.74 percent. Franklin Resources, Inc. (Franklin) is a holding company. Franklin together with its various subsidiaries (collectively, the Company), is referred to as Franklin Templeton Investments, is a global investment management organization offering investment choices under the Franklin, Templeton, Mutual Series, Bissett, Fiduciary and Darby brand names. The Company operates in two segments: investment management and related services, and banking/finance. Its investment management and related services provides services to investment funds in jurisdictions globally, which include the... more

The Most Promising Dividends in Educational Services

Yields and growth rates and payout ratios, oh my! Before we get to those companies, though, you should understand just why you'd want to own dividend payers. These stocks can contribute a huge chunk of growth to your portfolio in good times, and bolster it during market downturns. As my colleague Matt Koppenheffer has noted: "Between 2000 and 2009, the average dividend-adjusted return on stocks with market caps above $5 billion and a trailing yield of 2.5% or better was a whopping 114%. Compare that to a 19% drop for the S&P 500."... more

Desperately Seeking Yield Through Equities: Part 9 - Dividend Anticipation

At the outset, I should warn readers that the strategy described in this piece is somewhat risky and controversial and does not provide immediate yield in the form of dividends. I am not referring to the often discussed "dividend capture" strategy (buying a stock shortly before the ex-dividend date). I will be discussing purchasing shares of companies that are not paying dividends or that are paying relatively low dividends in the expectation that dividends will be resumed or increased in a reasonably short time frame and that the stock will shoot up upon that event. In terms of waiting for the resumption or increase in dividends, I use the term "anticipation" in honor of Carly Simon's great 70s song describing waiting for a date with Cat Stevens and used by Heinz (HNZ) in some great... more

The 4 Best Professional Services Dividends of the S&P 500

The other day I received a new pair of running shoes in the mail that I had ordered off of eBay (EBAY). I was surprised to find that they were packaged by Pitney Bowes (PBI) since I had only just learned what this company does in an article written by my colleague, found here. He insists that they are an excellent company for an "everyday investor." I don’t know what he means by this but I would generally encourage investors to follow the tenet of understanding what you are investing in. To my surprise, Pitney Bowes also came up on top of a list of S&P 500 companies with the highest dividend yields in the commercial and professional services industry. Bloomberg releases this list at the end of every month and if utilized correctly it can be extremely helpful. What’s odd with this... more

4 Dividend Stocks Showing You the Money

Readers of the Income Investor newsletter can certainly appreciate that kind of thinking. Let's take a closer look at some of the companies that inched their payouts higher this past week. Let's start with General Mills (NYSE: GIS) . The cereal giant fortified its yield by bumping its quarterly distributions 9% higher to $0.305 a share. Dividends are "Lucky Charms" for General Mills' shareholders, since the company and its predecessors have been paying them for 112 years.... more

3 Dividend Champions Among Oil Majors

It should be an interesting week in the market. Last week saw a 5%-plus rally, and we have a short week of trading starting Tuesday because of the holiday. Will the market hold the gains of next week or will we give back a substantial portion of the previous week’s rally? I think it will probably be the latter. One of the areas that I will be looking to put some money to work if we do get that pullback is in the energy sector. Specifically I am looking at major integrated oil majors with low valuations, growing earnings and most importantly decent dividend yields with a history of significantly growing their dividend payments over time. Here are three that I will be considering.Total S.A. (TOT), together with its subsidiaries, operates as an integrated oil and gas company worldwide. The... more