2 Reliable Dividend Stocks With Yields Above 8% That You Can Buy With $100 Now and Hold Forever
Are you looking for stocks that can provide heaps of passive income without a lot of risk? If so, there is a pair of dividend-paying stocks with yields above 8% at recent prices that you may want to look at.
Hercules Capital (NYSE: HTGC) and Altria Group (NYSE: MO) have been meeting their dividend commitments and steadily raising their quarterly payouts. Here’s why they could be great portfolio additions for just about anyone who wants to pump up their passive-income stream.
Hercules Capital
Hercules Capital is a business development company (BDC), which means it has to return at least 90% of the profits it generates to shareholders as a dividend. While most BDCs focus on established businesses with positive cash flows, Hercules provides start-ups with venture capital in return for an equity stake or warrants.
Many of Hercules Capital’s investments don’t work out, but the ones that succeed more than offset the losses. For example, software businesses including Palantir and life science companies such as Axsome Therapeutics were previous recipients of seed capital from Hercules.
Hercules isn’t resting on any laurels. So far this year, two unnamed portfolio companies filed for initial public offerings (IPOs). Also in the first quarter, four more portfolio companies agreed to lucrative merger and acquisition deals.
Hercules offers a standard quarterly distribution that’s been rising since 2010 and is currently set at $0.40 per share. The BDC’s standard distribution delivers an 8.1% dividend yield at recent prices.
When companies that Hercules seeds with modest amounts of capital get acquired or pull off successful IPOs, they can create huge windfalls. Those cash flows are so unpredictable that Hercules also offers a supplemental dividend that it adjusts every year.
Hercules Capital’s supplemental distribution is currently set at $0.08 per share per quarter. If next year’s supplemental distribution falls in line with the current one, investors who buy this BDC at recent prices could receive a 9.8% yield. Adding shares to a diverse portfolio and hanging on for the long run look like an easy way to pump up your passive-income stream.
Altria Group
Altria Group is the U.S. tobacco company that markets the leading Marlboro brand. At recent prices, the stock offers an eye-popping 8.4% dividend yield.
Dividend yields rarely rise past 8% unless investors aren’t sure about the business’s ability to keep raising its payout. Powerful brands like Marlboro helped Altria Group raise its dividend payout 58 times over the past 54 years, but investors are nervous about cigarette sales, which have been declining rapidly.
Altria Group shipped 16.45 billion cigarettes in Q1, which was 10% less than it shipped a year earlier. Total revenue during the period fell just 1% year over year thanks to increased prices on the Marlboro brand and rising sales of smokeless products.
Altria Group’s $12.8 billion investment in Juul ended in disaster, but it acquired a new e-vapor start-up called NJOY last year. This is the only pod-based system authorized for sale by the FDA, and sales are accelerating. During the six-month period that ended on Dec. 31, 2023, Altria shipped 1.3 million NJOY devices. In the first three months of 2024, Altria already shipped about 1 million NJOY devices.
Total revenue is down slightly, but Altria Group can still raise earnings per share (EPS) by repurchasing lots of stock. As a result, management expects adjusted earnings per share in 2024 to climb 2% to 4.5% year over year.
Altria Group’s dividend payout might not rise very fast. With a high yield to start out and steady raises likely in the years ahead, this stock could produce heaps of dividend income for patient investors.
Should you invest $1,000 in Hercules Capital right now?
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Cory Renauer has positions in Axsome Therapeutics. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Axsome Therapeutics and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
2 Reliable Dividend Stocks With Yields Above 8% That You Can Buy With $100 Now and Hold Forever was originally published by The Motley Fool
