A dividend stock refers to a company that is known to regularly reward their shareholders with a fraction of their profits on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or sometimes even a yearly basis.
Dividend paying companies provide a steady stream of income to shareholders, and many still offer the potential for stock price appreciation. Stability and income generation has always remained a top priority for many investors.
Given ongoing economic uncertainty, investors hunt for dividend-paying stocks that are undervalued, as only companies that have quality fundamentals and a robust foundation have the financial stability to maintain their dividends during questionable economic periods.
Another great aspect of adding dividend stocks to one’s portfolio is the ability to reinvest any dividends paid out by a company, using them to buy more shares (sometimes called ‘DRIP’), and taking advantage of compounding returns.
Best Dividend Stocks October 2024
| Company Name | Stock Symbol | Dividend Yield | P/E Ratio | Dividend CAGR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ally Financial Inc. | ALLY | 3.4% | 15.0x | 14.9% |
| Sirius XM Holdings Inc. | SIRI | 4.6% | 6.0x | 17.1% |
| Nexstar Media Group, Inc. | NXST | 4.1% | 12.2x | 29.2% |
| The Wendy’s Company | WEN | 5.6% | 17.9x | 24.1% |
| TEGNA Inc. | TGNA | 3.2% | 39.4% | 10.2% |
| Lakeland Financial Corporation | LKFN | 3.1% | 15.7x | 12.1% |
| Virtus Investment Partners Inc | VRTS | 4.4% | 13.3x | 28.1% |
Why We Picked These Dividend Stocks
The dividend stocks that have been screened and included in the list below show solid, consistent dividend prospects, strong fundamentals, long profit histories and strong credit ratings. We want to show investors that the best dividend stocks available for trading often still have room to run, while also hedging against too much volatility and generating additional compoundable (when reinvested) income.
The numbered list of such top dividend companies are displayed below:
- Market Cap: 10.724 billion
- Fair Value: $41.79
- Fair Value Upside: 18.7%
Ally Financial Inc. is an American bank holding company, with headquarters located in Detroit, Michigan. It provides financial services including car finance, online banking through a direct bank, vehicle insurance, and mortgage loans, among others. It is the among the largest car finance companies in the country. The company was formerly known as GMAC Inc. and changed its name to Ally Financial Inc. in May 2010.
- Market Cap: 7.841 billion
- Fair Value: $35.48
- Fair Value Upside: 53.5%
SiriusXM is the leading audio entertainment company in North America with a portfolio of audio businesses including its flagship subscription entertainment service SiriusXM. Headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, it provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States.
Nexstar Media Group Inc (NXST)
- Market Cap: 5.273 billion
- Fair Value: $209.67
- Fair Value Upside: 28.3%
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is a leading diversified media company which produces and distributes engaging local as well as national news, sports and entertainment content across its television and digital platforms. It includes over 310,000 hours of programming produced annually by its business units.
Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Midtown Manhattan, and Chicago, Nexstar owns America’s largest local broadcasting group of top network affiliates, with 200 owned or partner stations in 116 U.S. markets reaching 220 million people.
- Market Cap: 3.61 billion
- Fair Value: $19.1
- Fair Value Upside: 7.6%
The Wendy’s Company (WEN) is a well-known American fast-food restaurant chain founded in 1969 by Dave Thomas. Wendy’s is famous for its square hamburgers, sea salt fries, and the Frosty, a signature frozen dairy dessert. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Wendy’s operates a global network of company-owned and franchised stores.
- Market Cap: 2.546 billion
- Fair Value: $21.46
- Fair Value Upside: 39.4%
Tegna Inc is an American broadcast, digital media and marketing services company, founded on June 29, 2015, after the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies. It is the largest owner of Big Four affiliates in the top 25 markets among independent station groups and reaches approximately 39% of all TV households across the United States. Tegna owns or operates 68 television stations in 54 markets.
Lakeland Financial Corporation (LKFN)
- Market Cap: 1.59 billion
- Fair Value: $68.33
- Fair Value Upside: 9.8%
Lakeland Financial Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Lake City Bank that provides various banking products and services in the United States. The company accepts various deposit products, such as noninterest bearing, interest-bearing checking, savings, money market, NOW, and demand deposits. It was founded in 1872 and is headquartered in Warsaw, Indiana.
Virtus Investment Partners Inc (VRTS)
- Market Cap: 1.454 billion
- Fair Value: $219.24
- Fair Value Upside: 6.8%
Virtus Investment Partners Inc. (VRTS) is a publicly owned investment manager. It operates as a multi-manager asset management business, comprising a number of individual affiliated managers, each having its own investment process and brand, and the services of unaffiliated sub advisers. The firm primarily provides its services to individual and institutional clients. It launches separate client focused equity and fixed income portfolios.
How to Find The Best Dividend Stocks
To start, we focused only on those U.S. stocks that have a market capitalization exceeding $1 billion as well as a significant market share, while presenting stable financial conditions for continuing the growth of their dividend payouts regardless of ongoing macro conditions.
In order to guarantee that we are not buying stocks that are already extremely expensive, a fair value assessment filter was added in the InvestingPro screener, which shows only those stocks that have growth potential going forward, thereby avoiding risks of a sudden, big drop in share price.
Further, a filter for dividend compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5 years has also been incorporated in our stock screening criteria, which curates a list of only those companies that are consistently growing their payout ratios at 10% or more.
Here are the steps to finding top U.S.-based dividend stocks easily using Investing Pro:
- Click on the Screener tool.
- Select ‘Dividend Yield’ as a filter parameter on the Screener page, and set the threshold value to greater than 3%.
- Add a P/E Ratio filter and set the range between 0 and 30x.
- Add a further four metrics: Market Cap, Shareholder Yield, Fair Value Upside and Dividend CAGR (5y), setting their range to desired values. You can also follow our stock selection metrics as shown in the screenshot below.
- For U.S.-centric stocks, select ‘United States’ under the ‘Trading Region’ tab drop-down, and make sure to check (select) the ‘Primary Trading Item’ option.
- You can then see the list of all the companies falling in the desired screener filters’ range arranged in a descending order.
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