Investing

5 Top Stocks to Buy With 5% Yields and Upside

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Even though the market and practically everybody in the universe knows that interest rates will be going higher, with perhaps two more increases this year and three next year, rates in the Treasury market have gone nowhere. In fact, the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond, which is at a 3.04%, is lower than it was back in December. While great for those looking for a mortgage, it’s still been tough for those looking to get dividend income.

We decided to look and see if there were some solid stocks that were paying good dividends and trading at reasonable levels. We screened our 24/7 Wall St. research database and found five companies that had at least two Buy ratings at major firms on Wall Street. All of them pay dividends more than 5%.

CenturyLink

This is the largest of the rural local exchange carriers and is expected to continue get a large dose of government money to provide continuing internet service in rural areas. CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) is a global communications, hosting, cloud and IT services company enabling millions of customers to transform their businesses through innovative technology solutions.

CenturyLink offers network and data systems management, Big Data analytics and IT consulting, and it operates more than 55 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia. The company provides broadband, voice, video, data and managed services over a robust 250,000-route-mile U.S. fiber network and a 300,000-route-mile international transport network.

Back in March, shareholders of CenturyLink and Level 3 Communications approved their merger by overwhelming majorities. Level 3 shareholders voted for the deal with an 81.2% majority (98.8% of the votes cast), while CenturyLink shareholders voted for the merger with 96.3% of the votes cast. Wall Street loves this deal, and the synergies the two have combined are very strong.

CenturyLink investors receive an 8.6 % dividend. JPMorgan rates the stock a Buy and its price target is $38. The Wall Street consensus price objective is $27.15. The stock closed trading on Wednesday at $25.11.

Kohl’s

This top retailer has traded sideways for months but has posted decent 2017 sales. Kohl’s Corp. (NYSE: KSS) operates department stores in the United States that offer private label, exclusive and national brand apparel, footwear, accessories, beauty and home products to children, men and women customers. The company also sells its products online at Kohls.com and through mobile devices.

While retail chains have suffered from internet pressure, Kohl’s has held its own as consumers see the company as a solid discount retailer. Merrill Lynch said this in a recent report:

Corporate Initiatives: new brands, convert loyalty members to credit cardholders, personalization, win market share from store closures. View on store closures is to keep the majority of its fleet open to defend market share/maintain relevance to the customer. Recent launch of Under Armour has exceeded expectations so far.

Shareholders receive a 5.46% dividend. Merrill Lynch has a $50 price target for the Buy-rated stock, and the consensus target is $42.57. The shares closed most recently at $40.32.


Mattel

This top toy maker continues to pay outstanding dividends, and toys rarely are out of favor. Mattel Inc. (NYSE: MAT) designs, manufactures and markets a range of toy products worldwide. It offers dolls and accessories, vehicles and play sets, and games and puzzles under brands that include Barbie, American Girl, Monster High, Disney Classics, Ever After High, Little Mommy, Polly Pocket, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Toy Story, Max Steel, WWE Wrestling and DC Comics.

The stock was hammered last month when it reported first-quarter results that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.

Mattel shareholders receive a 6.73% dividend. The $32 UBS price target for the Buy-rated stock compares with the posted consensus target of $26.44. The stock closed Wednesday at $22.58.

Royal Dutch Shell

This company has survived the plunge in oil pricing as good as or better than any other major integrated stock. Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS-A) operates as an independent oil and gas company worldwide through its Upstream and Downstream segments. The company explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids.

Royal Dutch Shell also converts natural gas to liquids to provide fuels and other products; markets and trades crude oil and natural gas; transports oil; liquefies and transports gas; extracts bitumen from mined oil sands and converts it to synthetic crude oil; and generates electricity from wind energy.

Shareholders receive a 5.82% dividend. Merrill Lynch recently raised its price target to $63 from $60, citing a bullish projection for Brent crude at $61 a barrel. The consensus price target is $63.39, and shares closed at $54.93.

Seagate Technology

Though still down over 40% from the highs posted last year, the stock has rallied huge off the lows. Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) designs, manufactures and sells electronic data storage products in the Asia-Pacific, the Americas and EMEA countries.

The company provides hard disk drives, solid state hybrid drives, solid state drives, PCIe cards and serial advanced technology architecture controllers that are designed for enterprise servers and storage systems in mission critical and nearline applications, as well as for client compute applications comprising desktop and mobile computing.

One of Wall Street’s biggest activist investors, ValueAct Capital, recently became one of Seagate’s largest shareholders with a new 9.5 million share stake. ValueAct established its new position via a secondary block trade, and will gain a seat at board meetings as an observer. ValueAct Capital generally invests in out-of-favor companies and works with them to make changes and boost long-term shareholder value.

Seagate reported revenue that was 3% higher year over year, reversing eight quarters in a row of year-over-year declines. However, it missed the consensus revenue estimate. Its reported adjusted earnings were up 400% year over year and beat the consensus. But the stock was crushed on the report and may be offering an outstanding entry point.

Seagate investors receive a 5.85% dividend. Jefferies has a $50 target to go along with its Buy rating. The consensus target is $46.13. The stock closed trading most recently at $43.11.

These five top companies pay huge dividends and offer investors outstanding entry points. One thing to bear in mind is there is always a possibility they could lower the dividends, which could hit the share price. However, for now, the distributions look safe.

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