While Most of Wall Street focuses on large and mega-cap stocks, as they provide a degree of safety and liquidity, many investors are limited in the number of shares they can buy. Many of the most significant public companies, especially the technology giants, trade over $500 per share, while many are in the low to mid-hundreds. It’s hard to get decent share count leverage at those steep prices.

Many investors, especially more aggressive traders, look at lower-priced stocks to make good money and get a higher share count. That can help the decision-making process, especially when you are on to a winner, as you can always sell and keep half.

We screened our 24/7 Wall St. research database, looking for smaller-cap companies that could offer patient investors enormous returns for the rest of 2024 and beyond. For low-price stock skeptics, many of the biggest companies in the world, including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), and NetFlix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) all traded in single digits at once.

Five companies that hit our screens also pay huge dividends, making the total return potential even more intriguing.

Berry Corporation

While off the radar, trading at just nine times the estimated 2024 earnings and posting a stunning 14.70% dividend, this could be a huge winner. Berry Corporation (NYSE: BRY) is an independent upstream energy company that develops and produces conventional oil reserves in the western United States.

It operates through:

• Exploration and Production (E&P)
• Well Servicing and Abandonment (CJWS) segments

The E&P segment develops and produces onshore, low geologic risk, and long-lived conventional oil and gas reserves in California and Utah.

CJWS provides healthy site services in California to oil and natural gas production companies with a focus on:

• Well Servicing
• Well-abandonment services
• Water logistics
• Offers rig-based and coiled tubing-based healthy maintenance and workover services
• Completion services
• Fluid management services
• Fishing and rental services
• Ancillary oilfield services

Big 5 Sporting Goods

Well off the radar and paying a gigantic 10.53% dividend, this small company could be a home run. Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation (NASDAQ: BGFV) operates as a sporting goods retailer in the western United States. Its products include athletic shoes, apparel, and accessories.

The company also offers a selection of outdoor and athletic equipment for:

• Team sports
• Fitness
• Camping
• Hunting
• Tennis
• Golf
• Winter and summer
• Home recreation.

It also provides private-label items, such as shoes, apparel, camping equipment, fishing supplies, and snow sports equipment.

The company sells private label merchandise under its trademarks, comprising Golden Bear, Harsh, Pacifica, and Rugged Exposure. It also operates an e-commerce platform under the Big 5 Sporting Goods name.

FAT Brands

With a funny name and a rich 8.50% dividend, this stock makes sense for aggressive investors. FAT Brands Inc. (NASDAQ: FAT) is a multi-brand restaurant company that acquires, develops, markets and manages quick service, fast casual, casual dining, and polished casual dining restaurant concepts worldwide.

It owns restaurant brands, including:

• Round Table Pizza
• Marble Slab Creamery
• Great American Cookies
• Hot Dog on a Stick
• Pretzelmaker
• Fazoli’s
• Fatburger
• Johnny Rockets
• Elevation Burger
• Yalla Mediterranean
• Buffalo’s Cafe and Buffalo’s Express
• Hurricane Grill & Wings
• Ponderosa Steakhouse / Bonanza Steakhouse
• Native Grill & Wings
• Twin Peaks

Redwood Trust

With a 9.22% dividend and colossal upside, intelligent traders are potentially grabbing shares of this company. Redwsood Trust, Inc. (NYSE: RWT) is a specialty finance company in the United States.

The company operates through three segments:

• Residential Mortgage Banking
• Business Purpose Mortgage Banking
• Investment Portfolio.

The Residential Mortgage Banking segment operates a mortgage loan conduit that acquires residential loans from third-party originators for subsequent sale, securitization, or transfer to its investment portfolio.

This segment also offers derivative financial instruments to manage risks associated with residential loans.

The Business Purpose Mortgage Banking segment operates a platform that originates and acquires business purpose loans, such as single-family rental and bridge loans, for subsequent securitization, sale, or transfers into its investment portfolio.

The Investment Portfolio segment invests in:

• Securities retained from residential and business purpose securitization activities
• Residential and small-balance multifamily bridge loans
• Residential mortgage-backed securities issued by third parties
• Freddie Mac K-Series multifamily loan securitizations
• Reperforming loan securitizations, servicer advance investments, home equity investments, and other housing-related investment

Vodafone Group

This company pays investors a huge 11.18% dividend and is in a sector that always has demand. Vodafone Group PLC (NASDAQ: VOD) provides telecommunication services in Europe and internationally.

It offers mobile connectivity services comprising:

• End-to-end services for mobile voice and data, messaging, device management, BYOx, and telecoms management
• Professional and consulting services
• Fixed line connectivity, such as fixed voice and data, broadband, software-defined networks, managed WAN, LAN, Ethernet, and satellite
• Financial services, as well as business and merchant services.

The company also provides:

• Consumer Internet of Things (IoT) propositions, as well as security and insurance products
• Mobile services
• Logistics
• Fleet management and intelligent metering services
• WiFi; digital services comprising mobile application development,
• Multi-access edge computing
• Worker insights
• AI assistant
• Drone detection
• Visual inspection and mixed reality
• Vodafone Analytics platform and traditional IT hosting services, including colocation, managed hosting, security, hosting infrastructure, and flexible computing for government

In addition, it offers integrated business communication services, fixed mobile convergence services, carrier services, and IoT devices comprising managed tablets and integrated terminals.

Further, it offers M-Pesa, an African mobile money platform to make payments and provide financial services; Vodafone Business multi-cloud platform; and productivity solutions, as well as operates digital cloud-based television platforms.

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