3 Safe Consumer Staples Stocks With Good Dividend Yields

As the market has enjoyed a massive rally in the last two years, it is getting harder and harder to find decent bargains that can hold up in the summer slowdown I see coming. One place to look is in the Consumer Staples area which has vastly underperformed the overall market. Here are three stocks that have reasonable valuations, a solid and growing dividend, as well as being largely recession resistant. Avon Products (AVP) - Avon Products Inc. manufactures and markets beauty and related products worldwide. Its product categories include color cosmetics, fragrances, skin care, and personal care; fashion jewelry, watches, apparel, footwear, and accessories; and gift and decorative products, housewares, entertainment and leisure, and children's and nutritional products. Valuation and... more

High Yield Traps: Four High Dividend Stocks at Risk of Reduced Yields

Dividends are a critical part of an investor's annualized returns. High dividend yield stocks have a strong history of outperforming the S&P 500. This happens usually because a high dividend yield arises from a mature, highly profitable company that is able to pay out earnings to shareholders. However, this is not always the case. High yields may also be caused by the decline in stock price of a distressed company or the collapse of economic fundamentals within its industry. Exemplified by the dividend reduction and crash of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in the past month, some stocks of fundamentally weak companies have deceptively high dividends that can lure an investor who does not do his or her homework. Below I have listed four companies that pay out dividends higher than... more

12 Income Stocks Rewarding Patient Dividend Investors

Success and riches do not happen overnight. It takes plenty of trial and effort and a lot of time before reaching your true potential in any field. Successful dividend investing is no different. It is all about finding the right strategy, buying the right stocks at the right entry price, and diversifying and reinvesting dividends selectively. Most importantly however, in order to have the power of reinvested dividends work for you, one has to have the patience to stick through thick and thin in his or her strategy, without abandoning it during bear markets for example. This healthy dose of patience would allow investors to see their capital compound over time.Several dividend growth stocks raised distributions last week. The list includes:PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP) manufactures, markets, and... more

2 Telecom Dividends to Buy and 1 to Avoid

Many telecom companies generate huge cash flows and lure investors to buy into their highly debt-levered business by paying out handsome dividends that dwarf other sectors -- but not all are created equally. Here are two telecom dividends you can trust and one you might be better off avoiding. AT&T (NYSE: T) -- Trust itBefore you roll your eyes and give me the old "Thanks, Captain Obvious" speech, you should understand this: With the exception of an odd blip in 2003, AT&T has raised its dividend every year for the past 25 years.... more

12 High Dividend Energy Stocks With Low PE Ratios

Oil prices declined from $112.5 to $98 and iShares S&P Global Energy ( IXC ) lost 7.4% last week. This offers a chance to buy energy stocks for investors. We prepared a list of 12 energy companies which regularly pay fat dividend checks. All companies in this list have a market capitalization above $400 million, P/E ratio lower than 18 and dividend yield of at least 2%. These 12 stocks returned 45.5% (including dividends) during the past 12 months, beating government bonds by a large margin. Stock Yield (%) Recent Price (USD) Dividend (USD) 2008 2009 2010 Global Partners LP (GLP) 7.13 25.78 1.95 1.95 1.96 AmeriGas Partners (APU) 6.17 46.82 2.53 2.82 2.79 Suburban... more

5 Dividend Stocks Rewarding Shareholders

Life moves quickly. Already this year we have seen uprisings, natural and man-made disasters, tax season has come and gone, and the Royal Wedding was still fresh in our minds until the death of Osama bin Laden stole the headlines. How many of our New Year's resolutions are still intact? The tyranny of the urgent may tempt us to delay and time zips by. The problem is that we can easily be overwhelmed and shot down. The way to solve this is to focus on what works in the long term, allowing us to filter out what may work in the short term but won't stand the test of time. We continue to examine different portfolios to see what we can learn and use to further our investment portfolios. Howard Silverblatt at Standard & Poor's noted that the first four months of dividend increases in 2011 have... more

This Huge Dividend Is Safe

When Frontier acquired a bushel of rural phone networks from Verizon (NYSE: VZ) , regulators put some stipulations on the deal. The biggest one was a requirement to give broadband access to 85% of households in Verizon's old territories by 2013. Verizon had extended DSL or fiber-optic FiOS services to only 65% of those households as the contract was signed, leaving a lot of heavy lifting to be done by Frontier. Frontier's capital expenses have indeed skyrocketed. A year ago, the company spent $70 million on network upgrades and maintenance in the first quarter. In the first-quarter report for 2011 that was just released, that figure jumped to $209 million -- a nearly threefold increase. Those required network builds are costly.... more

The Most Promising Dividends in Application Software

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

Twelve Income Stocks Rewarding Patient Dividend Investors

Success and riches do not happen overnight. It takes plenty of effort, trial and effort and a lot of time before reaching your true potential in any field. Successful dividend investing is no different. It is all about finding the right strategy, buy the right stocks at the right entry price, diversify and reinvest dividends selectively. Most importantly however, in order to have the power of reinvested dividends work for you, one has to have the patience to stick through thick and thin in their strategy, without abandoning it during bear markets for example. This healthy dose of patience would allow investors to see their capital compound over time. Several dividend growth stocks raised distributions last week. The list includes: PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP) manufactures, markets, and sells... more

Dividend Champion Portfolio for May

In December 2010, I created a screen/hypothetical portfolio called the "High Yield Dividend Champion Portfolio." The screen is tracked publicly as a continuous hypothetical portfolio with a starting balance of $100,000 on Scott's Investments (see the right hand column for a link to the spreadsheet). Like many of the screens, strategies, and portfolios I track and prefer, this strategy takes a small number of historically relevant ideas, to create a simple, yet powerful action plan for the individual investor. As I have previously detailed, some studies have shown that the, highest yielding, low payout stocks perform better over time than stocks with higher payouts and lower yields. This portfolio attempts to capture the best high yield, low payout stocks with a history of raising... more