High Dividend Paying Stocks

High Dividend Paying Stocks. Top dividend paying stocks: Top 10, Top 25, all carefully ranked.

How to choose dividend paying companies

As Schreiber and Stroik note, there are three basic dividend attributes on which you should evaluate dividend-paying companies:

• Reliable divided payment history
• Record of increasing dividends
• Relatively high dividend yield

This dividend history is usually already partly accounted for by the stock price. Companies with the most attractive dividend history – that is, they pay dividends reliability and in increasing values, will usually also be highly demanded and thus command higher stock prices.

The company’s record of dividend growth is also an indirect indicator of the company’s ability to grow earnings. However, look out for disconnects between dividend growth and earnings. Companies will declining earnings despite increasing dividends will eventually need to cut dividend payouts.

Top Dividend Paying Stocks

Top 10 Dividend Stocks

As Gene Walden suggests in his excellent book The 100 Best Dividend Paying Stocks to Own in America, here are the top 10 dividend stocks he would recommend. These are all high dividend paying stocks that rank well on all the criteria listed above:

Rank 1. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners
Rank 2. Thornburg Mortgage, Inc
Rank 3. Bank of America
Rank 4. North Fork Bancorp
Rank 5. Wells Fargo & Co.
Rank 6. Bank of Nova Scotia
Rank 7. U.S. Bancorp
Rank 8. Synovus Financial
Rank 9. Fifth Third Bancorp
Rank 10. Total S.A.

Top 25 Dividend Stocks

Here are the next best high dividend paying stocks, the top 25 dividend stocks:

Rank 11. First Horizon National
Rank 12. Royal Bank of Canada
Rank 13. Cedar Fair, L.P
Rank 14. Associated Banc-Corp
Rank 15. SunTrust Banks
Rank 16. MBNA Corp
Rank 17. Duke Realty Corp
Rank 18. Teppco Partners, L.P
Rank 19. Kimco Realty Corp
Rank 20. Archstone-Smith Trust
Rank 21. BB&T Corp
Rank 22. AmSouth Bancorp
Rank 23. Weingarten Realty Investors
Rank 24. Peoples Energy Corp
Rank 25. Regions Financial Corp

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