Dividend paying stocks discussion

I saw the thread about individual stock discussion. But that thread is all over the place. It is difficult to follow discussions.
I'm hoping to focus on dividend paying stocks only. Yields of at least 2.5%, I prefer close to or more than 4%.
I want to keep it narrowed to those stocks which have earnings (or cash flow) greater than the dividend payout so that the dividends are reasonably secure. Preferably as close to twice the dividend payout as possible.
Also, we give priority to companies with a long record of paying dividends without fail... better yet, never decreasing their dividends and sometimes raising them!
We don't just find them to buy them... we wait for pullbacks in price so that the dividend yields are higher than usual... or we find some trend in the business such that we expect improved earnings or cash flow to allow further increases in dividends later... or we use Ex-dividend dates as a tendency of the stock price to stay up or rise as we approach that ex-div date and use that phenomenon to our advantage such as selling naked puts that expire before that ex-div date... or sell naked puts OTM and be glad if it ends up ITM with stock put to us at that lower strike price... etc.

This thread will take a little more effort to find these gems instead of the "individual stock discussion" thread. But getting dividend stocks is a nice subset of stocks. Plus we can all learn a little bit more about investing...

too much volatility in the market to invest in individual stocks as a small guy--- you could do a nice screen --- but it is impossible to take into account the massive amounts of money that is in the game for sole purpose of trading and manipulation

good luck managing your own hand-picked portfolio --- dividend stocks or not

will you do better than just buying an ETF? HDV

SpeedingLunatic said:   A good starting-point is the S&P Dividend Aristocrats Index

The S&P 500® Dividend Aristocrats index measures the performance of large cap, blue chip companies within the S&P 500 that have followed a policy of increasing dividends every year for at least 25 consecutive years.

Current members:

3M Co				MMM
AFLAC Inc			AFL
AT&T Inc			T 
AbbVie Inc.			ABBV
Abbott Laboratories		ABT
Air Products & Chemicals Inc	APD 
Archer-Daniels-Midland Co	ADM
Automatic Data Processing	ADP 
Bard C.R. Inc			BCR
Becton Dickinson & Co		BDX 
Bemis Co Inc			BMS 
Brown-Forman Corp B		BF/B 
Cardinal Health Inc		CAH 
Chevron Corp			CVX
Chubb Corp			CB 
Cincinnati Financial Corp	CINF
Cintas Corp			CTAS 
Clorox Co			CLX 
Coca-Cola Co			KO
Colgate-Palmolive Co		CL 
Consolidated Edison Inc		ED 
Dover Corp			DOV 
Ecolab Inc			ECL 
Emerson Electric Co		EMR 
Exxon Mobil Corp		XOM 
Family Dollar Stores Inc	FDO 
Franklin Resources Inc		BEN 
Genuine Parts Co		GPC 
Grainger W.W. Inc		GWW 
HCP Inc				HCP 
Hormel Foods Corp		HRL 
Illinois Tool Works Inc		ITW 
Johnson & Johnson		JNJ
Kimberly-Clark			KMB
Leggett & Platt			LEG 
Lowe's Cos Inc			LOW
McCormick & Co			MKC 
McDonald's Corp			MCD 
McGraw-Hill Cos Inc		MHP
Medtronic Inc			MDT
Nucor Corp			NUE
PPG Industries Inc		PPG
Pentair Ltd.			PNR
PepsiCo Inc			PEP
Procter & Gamble		PG
Sherwin-Williams Co		SHW
Sigma-Aldrich Corp		SIAL
Stanley Black & Decker		SWK
Sysco Corp			SYY
T Rowe Price Group Inc		TROW
Target Corp			TGT
VF Corp				VFC
Wal-Mart Stores			WMT
Walgreen Co			WAG

Thanks for the list !!

NTG, very very stable. a fund that invests in MLP, basically pipelines companies. no K1 for you to deal with. the best thing? 100% of their dividends becomes return of capital in the past few years. yield isn't the greatest, but you can't beat tax free.

In the stocks thread I threw in AGNC . Take a look at their dividend.... 15% http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AGNC

FSC- Check it out

ChefJoe said:   In the stocks thread I threw in AGNC . Take a look at their dividend.... 15% http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AGNC

I'm investing in ARR at 14% yield, but remember ARR and AGNC are non-qualified dividends. AGNC has a lot of fees (see: https://www-us.computershare.com/investor/3x/plans/buyshares.asp... and ARR has almost no fees for purchasing, re-investing, etc, only a $15 fee for selling and a $25 fee for bouncing a check, see their prospectus page 14 at http://www.armourreit.com/updates/11678_ARMOUR_Prospectus_03-30-...

For me, as probably some others, I'm interested in ETF's/Mutual Funds that focus on securities with consistently high dividend yields. Don't have time to manage individual stocks. Any recommendations besides HDV?

omarECD said:   Also, from what I read, 2012 was the last year that dividends could be qualified and taxed at the 15% capital gains tax rate? It looks like going forward, all dividends will be taxed at ordinary income tax rates?Not exactly. The tax on dividends will vary from zero to 20per cent dependent on income level
. Also there maybe 3.8 surcharge for certAin investors.Of course there requirements for qualified dividends such as length of holdings and whether it is domestic or foreign.

Yields on stocks are not the same as yields on fixed income instruments. Every time a stock pays out a dividend, its price declines by that amount. Not the case with fixed income. Buying stocks just for the yield is not very profitable, especially given the 2-4% yield range combined with high volatility.

I bought a lot of VZ and AT&T in 2010, their businesses were exploding with smartphones/tablets and they've of course always got their core ISP, backbone, and legacy phone. They were paying 7% steadily with increasing dividends with increasing reuslts every quarter. Not only did I get a very safe, secure dividend, but the share prices themselves jumped about 30% over the next year as people who trade stocks realized smartphones were going to be a big thing.

I think their dividends are still ~5%, and I think the dividend is very safe. There is increasing pressure from smaller phone companies and MNVOs now in the cellular market, but AT&T and VZ dominate with like 80% of the market, and no matter where the tech industry goes, no matter what the next iGadget or connected service or customization is...it'll need mobile/home internet service and that's what these guys have on lockdown. They are the toll roads of the new millenia.

Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity - SCHD
Vanguard High Dividend Yield Indx ETF - VYM

valueinvestor said:   There could be some distortion caused by the increase in taxes on dividends. Filthy rich people are going to be a bit more averse to receiving dividends this year in their taxable accounts (now taxed at 20%), which may make dividends good for tax-advantaged accounts or taxable account of people below the top bracket.

I keep all of my Dividend yielding stocks in a Roth IRA. But I am not filthy rich anyways lol...

I don't want to discuss specific stocks, but I would like to say that I have been investing in a dividend payer for all of my adult life as part of my 401k. It hasn't been a great performer, but that has allowed me to buy more shares. When my oldest started college, I started taking the dividends as a distribution. This 'turbocharged' my take home pay even as I continued to invest in the stock via matched 401k contributions. The dividends are treated as 'regular income' which is good if you are from a state that has no income tax (as I am).

When my youngest finishes college, I'll invest those dividends in less volatile options as I prepare for retirement. I hope to pass those shares to my kids at some point.I'm not getting rich, but my life is a lot less bumpy than that of some of my friends.

I'm not, but I didn't want to make the point about a specific stock. People get hung up on the performance of a specific stock. The concept is to buy and hold in a 401k to minimize fees, grab the match, and defer the taxes. If you can take the dividend as a distribution at will, then you get to increase your income to deal with life's bumps without dealing with penalties. When you need money for a new car, you have the option of borrowing from yourself if the stock is high -- it's kind of like putting CDs in your portfolio. And if disaster strikes, you can probably not pay back your 401k without incurring penalties or messing up your credit. That was the point.

It's GE.

samiam68 said:   Yields on stocks are not the same as yields on fixed income instruments. Every time a stock pays out a dividend, its price declines by that amount. Not the case with fixed income. Buying stocks just for the yield is not very profitable, especially given the 2-4% yield range combined with high volatility.(Bold mine.) This statement is logically and mathematically incorrect, because it fails to allow for growth in earnings over time. (Likely behavior on the ex-div date is another matter, of course.)

My current holding . For ppassive income purposes.
KMP
SNH
PGX
SDIV

Squeezer99 said:   

I'm investing in ARR at 14% yield, but remember ARR and AGNC are non-qualified dividends. AGNC has a lot of fees (see: https://www-us.computershare.com/investor/3x/plans/buyshares.asp... and ARR has almost no fees for purchasing, re-investing, etc, only a $15 fee for selling and a $25 fee for bouncing a check, see their prospectus page 14 at http://www.armourreit.com/updates/11678_ARMOUR_Prospectus_03-30-...

I bought these through Ameritrade which reinvests dividends free.

VIG? Low expense ratio and has good companies

VIG

I'm hoping KMI gets back to a 4% yield