When considering stocks for dividend income, yield shouldn’t be the only thing you consider. If a stock’s price has tumbled because investors are worried about the company’s business prospects, the dividend yield might be very high. A double-digit yield might mean investors expect to see a cut to the dividend soon.
There are many ways to look at companies’ expected ability to maintain or raise their dividend payouts. But one can also take a simple approach to begin researching stock choices.
At the moment, you can get a bank CD with a yield of close to 5% pretty easily. Here’s a look at current yields for CDs and U.S. Treasury securities and an approach for laddering them not only to protect your cash but to hedge against interest-rate risk.
For investors who would rather aim for long-term growth to go along with dividend income, or take a relatively conservative approach to growth while reinvesting dividends, a screen of stocks in the S&P 500 SPX, -0.14% produces only 10 stocks with dividend yields of 4.5% or higher with majority “buy” or equivalent ratings among analysts polled by FactSet. Here they are, sorted by dividend yield:
| Company | Ticker | Dividend Yield | Expected payout increase through 2025 | Share “buy” ratings | April 16 price | Consensus price target | implied 12-month upside potential |
| Comerica Inc. | CMA, 2.48% | 6.56% | 10% | 58% | $43.30 | $60.53 | 40% |
| Citizens Financial Group Inc. | CFG, 2.11% | 5.77% | 12% | 74% | $29.10 | $39.29 | 35% |
| Healthpeak Properties Inc. | PEAK, +0.81% | 5.71% | 9% | 60% | $21.01 | $27.69 | 32% |
| Hasbro Inc. | HAS, 1.20% | 5.34% | 8% | 69% | $52.40 | $69.27 | 32% |
| Philip Morris International Inc. | PM, 0.14% | 5.11% | 11% | 67% | $99.48 | $113.56 | 14% |
| Realty Income Corp. | O, 0.32% | 5.04% | 7% | 56% | $60.77 | $70.00 | 15% |
| Fifth Third Bancorp | FITB, 1.51% | 4.99% | 3% | 72% | $26.44 | $34.55 | 31% |
| VICI Properties Inc. | VICI, 0.63% | 4.82% | 12% | 95% | $32.35 | $37.73 | 17% |
| Organon & Co. | OGN, 0.55% | 4.71% | 5% | 55% | $23.80 | $31.89 | 34% |
| Iron Mountain Inc. | IRM, 0.24% | 4.69% | 15% | 78% | $52.76 | $56.00 | 6% |
| Source: FactSet | |||||||
Source: Market Watch