Safe Dividend Stocks

Some companies may have high dividend yields because their share price declined recently. At other companies, high dividend yield may be a sign of stability and safety. These dividend payments are not only unlikely to be cut or skipped in the near future, but rather raised for years into the future. 24/7 Wall St. identified the safest of the high dividend yield stocks in the S&P 500.

It turns out that only one of the 10 highest yielding S&P 500 stocks also made the list of the safest dividends — AT&T. The safest dividends do not usually have very high yields in the 8% to 10% range — such yields are often risky and the payments in danger of being slashed. While we used a market capitalization floor of $10 billion, all of the high yielding stocks with safe dividends have much larger market caps. While large scale mergers often make dividend and earnings analysis more difficult, the AT&T-DirecTV and Kinder Morgan deals will likely support the same or even higher dividend payouts ahead.

Source: MSN Money

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