24/7 Wall Street Insights

• Inflation and reduced purchasing power due to escalating prices is impacting millions of Americans.
• Dividend stock portfolios may be the ideal passive income platform for many with investable assets who require ready liquidity, double digit yields, and industrial diversification.
• For investors seeking dividends, click here for a free report on two high dividend stocks.

The economic environment over the last three years has been loaded with inflation and diminishing buying power. As such, the pressures of bills and stretching household budgets have impacted millions of Americans. Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni calculated the nearly 20 percent increase in cost of goods means Americans’ inflation-adjusted paycheck has dropped about $50 per week, $200 per month, or $2,400 per year.

Dividend Stocks A Viable Solution?

Dividend stocks offer a menu of attractive features to suit a broad spectrum of investors:

• Low ticket price of admission (Unlike investments in real estate or other businesses which cost tens of thousands at a minimum, dividend stocks can be bought with hundreds to start.)
• Diversification of Industry (Healthcare, technology, manufacturing, aerospace, energy, and many other industries all boast dividend stocks that can fit a portfolio that prevents the “all eggs in a single basket” risk scenario.)
• Liquidity (T+1 is now standard, meaning next day settlement. Other asset classes can take weeks to years to become liquid.)
• Volatility ranges (Some investors like Las Vegas style action; those who lack the stomach for that turbulence can also find stocks to their liking.)
• Replaceability (If one stock receives adverse news, it can easily be replaced by another one with a near identical yield.).

Uniti Group, Inc.

Stock #1 : Uniti Group, Inc.(NASDAQ: UNIT)

Yield: 22.64%

Shares for $15,000: 5,607.48

Annual Dividend Amount: ~$3,396

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are an affordable way for investors to play in the real estate arena on a prorated basis. For tax purposes, REITs are required to remit 90% of profits to its shareholders. However REITs can take on many varied areas of focus that relate to real estate.

Uniti Group, Inc. of Little Rock, Arkansas has a unique twist on REITs. It provides fiber optic cable and other telecommunications and data connectivity in a wide range of properties in 300 metropolitan markets. To date, Uniti Group has ownership of 141,000 fiber route miles, 8.4 million fiber strand miles, 27,600 constructed route miles, in 320,000 total buildings.  

As a penny stock with a high yield, Uniti Group is certainly lucrative at this time, but can also be a target for Mergers and Acquisitions or other scenarios that could impact its 22%+ dividend yield. 

BW LPG Limited

Stock #2 : BW LPG Limited (NYSE: BWLP)

Yield: 22.51%

Shares for $15,000: 79.70

Annual Dividend Amount: ~ $3,331.50

According to Marine Insight, BW LPG is the 4th largest shipping company in the world of Liquefied Petroleum Gas and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) transportation. Although officially registered under the BW LPG name in 2003, it was actually the result of a merger between two veteran international carriers. Bergesen d.y. & Co., founded in Stavanger, Norway in 1935, and World-Wide Shipping, founded in 1955 by Hong Kong magnate Sir Yue-Kong Pao, are the parent entities of BW Group. 

With five decades of combined shipping expertise in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, BW LPG Limited’s 44 total vessels is one of the largest VLGC (Very Large Gas Carrier) fleets in the world. Its 17 LPG dual propulsion powered vessels comprise the largest LPG powered VLGC fleet on the planet. The company has a total of over 3 million CBM carrying capacity, BW LPG Limited presently operates out of both Singapore and Bermuda.

Pareto, Kepler Capital and UBS are among the analysts who follow BW LPG Limited. They all rate the stock “buy” or “hold”.  

Monroe Capital Corporation

Stock #3 : Monroe Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: MRCC) 

Yield: 13.30%

Shares for $15,000: 1,997.34 

Annual Dividend Amount: ~$1,995

Business Development Companies (BDC) play a crucial role in the private debt and equity market for non-public corporations. Banks will often shy away from financing clients for acquisitions, spinoff projects, executive buyouts and a litany of other transactions that it may deem are too risky for the bank. In other cases, clients will find that their banks’ apprehension translates into  prohibitively costly fees and restrictions that threaten the transaction.

Chicago headquartered Monroe Capital Corporation deploys its $527 AUM with customized financing solutions. These can take the form of senior, unitrance, or junior secured debt, subordinated or unsecured debt, and minority stake preferred or common equity with warrants. Monroe Capital Corporation’s sweet spot client has EBITDA between $3 million and $35 million. 

Lument Finance Trust, Inc.

Stock #4 : Lument Finance Trust, Inc. (NYSE: LFT)

Yield: 12.60%

Shares for $15,000: 5,905.51 

Annual Dividend Amount: ~$1,890

Lument Finance Trust offers a more traditional version of the REIT. The company originates and invests in commercial real estate floating rate mortgages, primarily for multi-family homes in the middle market levels. NY based Lument Finance Trust, Inc. also engages in mezzanine loans, commercial mortgage-backed securities, preferred equity, fixed rate loans, construction loans, and other commercial real estate related debt.

Lument Finance Trust, Inc’s same named LLC manager is a subsidiary of Orix, USA, which has Japanese financial backing and $400 billion AUM.

CION Investment Corporation

Stock #5 : CION Investment Corporation (NYSE: CION)

Yield: 11.86%

Shares for $15,000: 1,235.58

Annual Dividend Amount: ~$1,779

From its Park Ave offices, just a few blocks east of New York’s Times Square, CION Investment Corp. manages its $1.9 billion portfolio as it pursues new BDC prospects. The company refers to itself as an “alternative investment manager” and recently announced a joint $5 billion credit fund with Ares Management Corporation. 

CION Investment Corporation’s BDC activities are focused on senior secured loans, first and second lien loans, subordinated and mezzanine loans, corporate bonds, warrants, options and other debt security configurations. Transactions qualifying for CION financing average between $5 million and $50 million. Qualifying companies’ EBITDA range will be between $25 million and $75 million.

Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc.

Stock #6 :Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FBRT)

Yield: 11.00%

Shares for $15,000: 1,163.65

Annual Dividend Income: ~$1,650

New York’s Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc. is a hybrid type of REIT that engages in direct origination of mortgages, ownership of brick and mortar properties (via foreclosure or direct purchase), as well as portfolio management of real estate related loans and other debt investments. Thus, it serves as both mortgage financier as well as property owner, and landlord capacities in a number of circumstances.

In a typical transaction, Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc. announced that it had closed on a 414-unit multifamily building in CT for a $125 million floating rate senior loan. This deal brought the company’s total 2024 gross transactions to $999 million with the second half of the year still available.

Institutional ownership interest in Franklin BSP Realty Trust is strong at 56%. Among the largest shareholders are asset management titan BlackRock, Inc. at 17.08%, Vanguard Group, Inc. at 10.96%, and State Street Corp., at 4.05%.

DHT Holdings, Inc.

Stock #7 : DHT Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:DHT)

Yield: 9.94%

Shares for $15,000: 1,284.25

Annual Passive Income: ~$1,491

Founded in 2005 and operating out of Hamilton, Bermuda, DHT Holdings owns a VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) fleet of 27 scrubber-equipped crude oil tankers, with 16 of them well over 300,000 DWT and the other 8 all over 299,000 DWT. The average age of the fleet is only ten years, so extensive fleet replacement for the future horizon should not be unnecessary for at least another 5-10 years. DHT Holdings also has a technical management services division. 

DHT is also involved with shipbuilding. It acquired Samco Shipbuilding in 2014, and maintains strong affiliations with Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding in South Korea, as well as with Bohai Shipbuilders in China.

DHT Holdings’ routes and destinations are primarily between Singapore, India, Monaco and Norway. The company’s average Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) was $42,800 per day, as of January, 2024. Management has done a good job of keeping the company’s debt-to-equity ratio below 50% since 2019. 11 of DHT’s vessels collateralize a $405 million credit facility with ING.

International Seaways, Inc.

Stock #8 : International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE: INSW)

Yield: 9.53%

Shares for $15,000: 248.71 

Annual Dividend Amount: ~$1,429.50

International Seaways Limited, founded in 2016 (as a spinoff from OSG) and headquartered in New York, has become a major player in global tanker shipping. With a market cap that has swelled to $2.97 billion, the firm operates a diverse fleet of 87 vessels, including 13 Very Large Crude Carriers, 13 Suezmax tankers, 5 Aframaxes/LR2s, 10 Panamaxes/LR1s, 40 MR tankers, and 4 Handy tankers. The company also has several minority interests in strategically located product storage facilities.

International Seaways’ customer base includes independent and state-owned oil companies, oil traders, refinery operators, and international government entities.

Easterly Government Properties Inc.

Stock #9 : Easterly Government Properties Inc. (NYSE: DEA) 

Yield: 8.72%

Shares for $15,000: 1,234.57 

Annual Dividend Amount: ~$1,308

Washington D.C.’s Easterly Government Properties Inc. is a REIT with a very specific niche customer: the US federal government. Easterly acquires, develops and manages Class-A commercial properties across the US that are subsequently leased to federal agencies for office space, warehousing, laboratories, courthouses, and a panoply of other uses. 

Easterly’s current portfolio contains 93 operating properties, 40 different tenant US agencies, 26 different states, and 9.1 million total leased square feet. 

The company keeps a huge database of GSA-leased properties for prospective acquisition in addition to its own internal property search and development teams.

If one’s investable assets are such that $15,000 per stock cannot be invested, the yields would be the same on a prorated basis. So even if only, say, $3,750 per stock were invested, the annual dividend would still come out to over $4,560, which is still more than the $2,400 average American paycheck loss.

It is advisable to pay meticulous due diligence toward monitoring a stock portfolio, especially for a high yielding dividend stock one. As mentioned earlier, high yielding companies with low stock prices can become acquisition targets. Certain businesses, such as the ones in this list that are in the maritime shipping arena, can be severely impacted if another Suez Canal blockage or comparable event were to occur.   

Name:

Yield:

Annual Dividend Income:

Uniti Group, Inc.(NASDAQ: UNIT)	22.64%	~$3.396
BW LPG Limited (NYSE: BWLP)	22.51%	~ $3,331.50
Monroe Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: MRCC)	13.30%	~$1,995
Lument Finance Trust, Inc. (NYSE: LFT)	12.60%	~$1,890
CION Investment Corporation (NYSE: CION)	11.86%	~$1,779
Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:FBRT)	11.00%	~$1,650
DHT Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:DHT)	9.94%	~$1,491
International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE: INSW)	9.53%	~$1,429.50
Easterly Government Properties Inc. (NYSE: DEA)	8.72%	~$1,308
Total:		$18,270.00

 

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