4 Top Dividend Stocks That’ll Pay You Better Than ‘Exciting Trailblazers’

 

Sustainable dividends, low beta and upside potential make these names worth holding

 


 “What causes the out-performance of the prosaic old-style stocks over the more exciting trailblazers?” Wharton Business School professor Jeremy Siegel sought to answer that question some 15 years ago in his analysis of dividend stocks.

 

“The answer is simple,” Siegel wrote in The Future for Investors: Why the Tried and True Triumph Over the Bold and the New. “Although the earnings, sales and even market values of the new firms grew faster than those of the older firms, the price investors paid for these stocks was simply too high to generate good returns. These higher prices meant lower dividend yields and therefore fewer shares accumulated through reinvesting dividends.”

 

What’s his evidence? “From 1950 through 2003, IBM shares sold at an average price 26.76 times annual earnings, while Standard Oil traded at 12.97 times earnings. IBM’s dividend yield (annual dividends divided by share price) was 2.18%, while Standard Oil’s was 5.19%.”

 

That higher dividend yield allowed Standard Oil shareholders to accumulate many more shares, causing returns to snowball, according to a post on the business school’s blog. Siegel concluded that “dividends matter a lot,” an historical trend likely to hold true in the future as well.

 

But there’s more — dividend stocks provide portfolio diversification. In general, companies that pay robust dividends and have sustained dividend growth come from mature industries. These companies have a low beta with relatively stable cash flows. A balanced portfolio has a mix of high and low beta stocks. Dividend stocks provide that balance.

 

 

I also believe that broad market valuations are stretched. Even with a long-term bullish outlook, it makes sense to go overweight on low beta stocks that also provide robust dividends. The top stocks to buy in this article will include some quality low beta dividend stocks.

 

Let’s discuss the following dividend stocks. Continue reading …

 

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