Paychex (PAYX) was founded in 1971 and provides a range of payroll, human resource, and benefits outsourcing services to more than 650,000 small and medium-sized businesses. The company's wide range of services includes: Payroll processing: calculate, prepare, and delivery employee payroll checks; prepare payroll tax returns; collect and remit client’s payroll obligations; time tracking, etc. Retirement services: 401(k) plan design, recordkeeping, and plan management services. Insurance: group health insurance, health care reform, workers’ comp, etc. Outsourced human resources: on-site personnel, employee handbooks, compliance services, employee records administration, etc.

Consumer staples companies like J.M. Smucker (SJM) are often owned for their recession-resistant qualities and safe dividends. Food and beverage makers tend to be low volatility stocks that serve as defensive holdings in conservative dividend growth portfolios. But Smucker has had a challenging year, down 24% in 2018 and off 40% from its mid-2016 high. That's driven the stock's dividend yield to over 3.5%, its highest level since the Financial Crisis. Let's take a look at why investors are so bearish on the company and whether this food giant's long-term dividend growth thesis remains intact.

Shares of LyondellBasell (LYB) have slumped nearly 30% since late August, performing much worse than the S&P 500's loss of 14%. The stock's dividend yield now sits near 5%, its highest level since Lyondell began paying dividends in 2011. With analysts projecting a double-digit earnings decline in the year ahead, the price of oil plunging again, and management open to making a large acquisition, let's take a closer look at Lyondell's dividend safety.

Altria's (MO) share price has slumped over 30% this year, making it one of the worst in history for the cigarette maker's shareholders. Altria's dividend yield now sits at 6.7%, its highest level since the Financial Crisis. A number of factors are behind Altria's rough year, including various negative regulatory announcements from the FDA, slightly larger volume declines in cigarettes, and two market corrections. However, now Altria appears to be sliding due to the company's recently announced $14.6 billion investments into cannabis company Cronos (CRON) and privately held vaping giant Juul Labs.

Compass Minerals (CMP) has been in business for more than 170 years and has increased its dividend each year since it began making payouts in 2004. Despite its appealing long-term track record, and the recession-resistant nature of its salt and fertilizer businesses, CMP's stock price has slumped over 50% since reaching an all-time high in 2014. As a result, the stock's dividend yield sits near 7%, its highest ever level. Management has kept the dividend frozen since March 2017, and many investors are wondering if a big cut could be around the corner. Compass Minerals has had an "Unsafe" Dividend Safety Score for more than a year, so let's take a closer look at the factors weighing on the stock [...]

Shares of regulated utility PPL (PPL) slumped nearly 7% on Tuesday following a proposal made by the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem), the United Kingdom's energy regulator. In recent years PPL has generated around half of its earnings from the four electricity distribution networks it operates in the U.K. As we discussed in our June 2018 note here (worth reading for a full background of the situation), Ofgem sets price controls that cap the revenue PPL can recover from its investments.

Shares of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) dropped 10% on Friday, shedding $40 billion in market value to mark its worst trading day since 2002. The cause was a Reuters article claiming that insiders at J&J knew for decades that its baby powder "sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos" without disclosing the issue to regulators or the public: "A Reuters examination of many of those documents, as well as deposition and trial testimony, shows that from at least 1971 to the early 2000s, the company’s raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos, and that company executives, mine managers, scientists, doctors and lawyers fretted over the problem and how to address it while failing [...]

Making money in 2018 hasn’t been easy. In fact, 90% of the 70 asset classes (covering everything from stocks to bonds and commodities) tracked by Deutsche Bank posted negative total returns in dollar terms for the year through mid-November, per The Wall Street Journal. That’s the highest percentage on record going back to 1901 (the previous high was in 1920, when 84% of 37 asset classes were negative). While a single year is not a very long period of time, the simultaneous “failure” of so many investment strategies is unusual and likely unnerving to some investors.

Over the past decade, the U.S. has seen its lowest interest rates in history which has made REITs, with their naturally high yields and low volatility, attractive so-called "bond alternatives." However, in reality, there are important differences between bonds and REITs that investors need to understand when deciding what asset allocation is right for them. Let's take a look at what these differences are, the pros and cons of each kind of asset, and most importantly, what the right mix of bonds and REITs is reasonable for a retirement portfolio.

With a 4.1% yield, Leggett & Platt (LEG) is one of the highest-yielding dividend aristocrats in the market, trailing only AT&T (T), AbbVie (ABBV), and Exxon Mobil (XOM). While the company has increased its dividend for 47 consecutive years, shares of Leggett & Platt are down more than 20% over the past year. As a result, the stock's dividend yield has increased to an unusually high level compared to its historical trading range. If nothing has changed with a company's long-term prospects or dividend safety, a relatively high yield can be a signal that a business is attractively priced.