It's been a brutal year for dividend aristocrat AbbVie (ABBV), which has seen its share price plunge more than 30% from its all-time high. As a result, the stock's yield is now at a record high of 5.2%, and shares trade at just 9.9 times forward earnings. Whenever a dividend stock's price crashes this severely, income investors naturally want to know whether it could be a great buying opportunity or is the market's way of warning that the payout may no longer be safe. At the very least, such severe price declines can signal that a company's long-term thesis is broken. Let's take a look at why the market has been so bearish on AbbVie and whether this high-yield stock [...]

Founded initially in 2002, Energy Transfer LP (ET) was formed out of the $27 billion all-stock merger of MLP Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and its sponsor Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) in October 2018. Energy Transfer is one of the largest integrated midstream MLPs in America. The firm owns a sizable network of assets that gather, process, transport, and export oil, gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs), as well as liquified natural gas (LNG).

Income investors are often attracted to mouthwatering yields, and L Brands' (LB) 7% payout certainly qualifies. Founded in 1963, L Brands operates over 3,000 company-owned retail stores, primarily under the Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works brands. Most of its locations are mall-based. By building up dominant brands in the lingerie, beauty, and fragrance niches, L Brands has been a great success story over the last few decades. In 1993, L Brands ran 545 company-owned Victoria's Secret stores and had 121 Bath & Body Works locations. Today its Victoria's Secret locations have more than doubled to 1,165 stores, and Bath & Body Works' footprint ballooned over 10 times to a whopping 1,703 shops. Along the way L Brands also [...]

On October 16, IBM (IBM) reported disappointing earnings that sent shares plunging nearly 8% the next day. This week shares continued tumbling after IBM announced plans to acquire software company Red Hat (RHT) for $34 billion. As a result, IBM's stock now trades at its lowest price since 2009, and its other valuation metrics also make it, at least initially, appear like a bargain hunter's dream stock: Forward P/E Ratio: 8.2 (lowest in over 10 years) Dividend Yield: 5.4% (all-time high) But given that IBM's shares peaked in mid-2013 and have since fallen more than 40% from their all-time high, long-term investors have still suffered mightily over the years. Even accounting for the company's generous and growing dividend, since its [...]