Kinder Morgan’s Long-term Dividend Growth Prospects
Kinder Morgan (KMI) has had a rough four years, enduring a painful turnaround that included billions in asset sales (to pay down debt) and a 75% dividend cut in late 2015. As a result, income investors have had to endure a -50% total return during a time when the S&P 500 is up 60%. Recently, Kinder Morgan announced what it expects to be the last major asset sale of its turnaround effort, which it believes will allow it to return to some of the fastest and safest dividend growth in the midstream industry. Let's take a look at what dividend investors need to know, including how safe Kinder's dividend really is and what kind of income growth investors might be [...]
Is Southern Company’s Dividend Still Safe?
Southern Company’s (SO) stock has slumped 8% since August 7, a large decline over such a short period of time for any business, much less a regulated utility that's supposed to be a defensive holding. The stock’s 5.4% dividend yield now sits near its highest level since 2010, causing some investors to wonder if Southern Company’s impressive streak of paying uninterrupted dividends for more than 70 consecutive years could be coming to an end. Let’s take a look at why Southern Company’s stock has slumped and whether or not the utility’s dividend remains on solid ground. Nuclear Plant Construction Issues Resurface Southern Company last reported earnings on August 8. While the firm’s core utilities are performing well, driving adjusted earnings [...]
Omega Healthcare Investors: Turnaround Appears On Track But High Risks Remain
Despite years of deteriorating conditions in the skilled nursing facility (SNF) industry, Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI), the nation's largest SNF REIT, was able to increase its dividend for 20 consecutive quarters. However, due to rising tenant distress, for 2018 management announced a major turnaround effort and froze the firm's quarterly dividend at its current 66 cents per share. Let's take a look at how Omega's turnaround is going, recent government healthcare policy updates, and management's expectations for the future. This should help provide Omega's shareholders with greater clarity regarding the safety of the REIT's high dividend. Omega Healthcare Turnaround Update At the start of the year, Omega announced that the bankruptcy of tenants such as Orianna (which leases 42 of [...]
Qualcomm’s Mega Merger Is Dead: What Dividend Investors Need To Know
Qualcomm (QCOM) has had an eventful two years to say the least. The company's main cash cow, chip licensing for smartphone manufacturers, has faced a customer revolt with both Apple (AAPL) and China's Huawei deciding to not to make royalty payments as they challenge the company in court over what they claim is predatory licensing agreements (Apple continues withholding $1 billion in royalties). Meanwhile, a slew of regulators all over the world have levied billions in fines against the company which it continues to appeal. And of course, Qualcomm's planned $44 billion acquisition of Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) was recently called off after a failed 21-month attempt to clear regulatory hurdles. Let's take a look at why the NXP [...]
Dividend Dates Guide: Ex-Dividend Date, Pay Date, Date of Record, and the Dividend Capture Strategy
Investing in dividend stocks for income can be a sound retirement strategy, but as with all things in finance, there are some important specifics that investors need to be aware of. This guide will look at what income investors need to know about ex-dividend dates, as well as other key dates associated with when and how you get paid from dividend stocks. We'll also evaluate whether or not it is generally a good idea to try to time your purchase or sales around these dividend dates in a strategy called "dividend capture". 3 Important Dates All Dividend Investors Need To Know There are three important dates to know when it comes to receiving a stock's dividend. Date of record: when a [...]
Dividend Stocks vs. Bonds in Retirement
When it comes to living off passive income in retirement, two of the most popular investments are dividend stocks and bonds. While both types of investments can be highly useful in funding living costs during your golden years, there are important differences between these two asset classes. This guide will look at these differences, both positives and negatives, to hopefully help you decide on what mix of dividend stocks and bonds is right for you. What are Bonds? Bonds are the one of the oldest (second only to gold) and largest asset classes. At the end of 2017, the global bond market totaled about $110 trillion, according to JPMorgan Asset Management. Most bonds are fixed rate investments (usually sold in [...]
Financial charts now available on the new website
As you may recall, we announced an all-new version of Simply Safe Dividends was available this summer. Nothing is changing with the original version of the website, but you always have the option of upgrading to the new website for free if you would like to (your membership terms would remain the exact same). We wanted to let you know about an important new feature we launched on the new site today in case it makes you more interested in the free upgrade. Specifically, we rolled out over a dozen financial charts for thousands of companies. This feature is an improved version of the fundamental charts you use in the Stock Analyzer today. Instead of just showing financial [...]
Warren Buffett’s Best High Dividend Stocks – Updated August 2018
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway outperformed the S&P 500 by 11% per year from 1965 through 2017, generating an overall gain of 2,404,748% compared to the market's total return of 15,508%. It's no wonder why investors closely monitor Warren Buffett's portfolio. He is arguably the greatest investor of all time, and his best investment advice can be seen here. While Berkshire Hathaway itself does not pay a dividend because it prefers to reinvest all of its earnings for growth, Warren Buffett has certainly not been shy about owning shares of dividend-paying stocks, and we will analyze each of Buffett's dividend stocks in this article. A dividend is often the sign of a financially healthy and stable business that is committed to rewarding shareholders. [...]
Buckeye Partners (BPL) Hints That Payout Cut Might Be Coming
Buckeye Partners (BPL) has long been a favorite master limited partnership (MLP) among income investors. That's thanks to the firm's impressive track record of steadily growing payouts which up until recently included 22 straight years of annual distribution increases and 32 years of uninterrupted payments. However, the MLP bear market, now in its fourth year, has put Buckeye Partners under immense strain and forced it to freeze its distribution growth in 2017. And now continued deterioration in its fundamentals has sent the yield to 14% as investors start pricing in a potential distribution cut. How likely is Buckeye Partners to actually cut its payout? Well, as we first pointed out in our March 2018 thesis, the signs aren't looking good. Fundamentals [...]
Assessing Walmart’s Appeal as a Dividend Growth Stock After Earnings Beat
Shares of Walmart (WMT) surged 10% following the release of the company’s second-quarter earnings report. The big headline is that Walmart’s sales growth was its best in more than a decade. Specifically, Walmart reported 4.5% growth across its U.S. stores that have been open for at least a year, driven by strength in its grocery business. The company's 2.2% customer traffic gain was also its strongest in more than six years, indicating that brick-and-mortar retail continues to have a pull even in the age of Amazon. Importantly, e-commerce sales increased 40%, in line with management’s expectations and up from 33% growth reported in the first quarter. Simply put, Walmart’s top line growth gave investors increased hope that the company is [...]