Thursday, December 15, 2011

7 High-Yielding Mega-Cap Stocks

There is perceived safety in size. Giant corporations aren't randomly grown. Instead, they are carefully built through superior management and foresight. Often these are more mature companies that also offer stability and predictability, usually at the expense of dynamic growth. These are your mega-cap stocks.

There is no universal definition of mega-cap stocks. Many define mega-cap as companies with a market cap exceeding $100 billion. Needless to say, most mega-cap companies are headquartered in the U.S., Europe and Japan. The 2000's commodity boom resulted in many energy and resource companies achieving mega-cap status, while the financial crisis resulted in some of the financial institutions losing mega-cap status.

This week week, I screened my dividend growth stocks database for stocks with a market cap over $100 billion and with a dividend yield above 3%. The results are presented below:

Pepsico, Inc. (PEP)
Yield: 3.1% | Market Cap: $101.9B
PepsiCo, Inc. is a major international producer of branded beverage and snack food products.

Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ)
Yield: 5.1% | Market Cap: $108.8B
Verizon Communications Inc. offers wireline, wireless and broadband services primarily in the northeastern United States. It acquired MCI in 2006 and has since sold or spun off non-core assets. Alltel was acquired in early 2009.

Intel Corporation (INTC)
Yield: 3.3% | Market Cap: $127.4B
Intel Corporation is the world's largest manufacturer of microprocessors, the central processing units of PCs, and also produces other semiconductor products.

AT&T Inc. (T)
Yield: 5.9% | Market Cap: $172.0B
AT&T Inc. (formerly SBC Communications) provides telephone and broadband service and holds full ownership of AT&T Mobility (formerly Cingular Wireless). AT&T plans to acquire T Mobile USA, subject to approvals, in 2012.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
Yield: 3.5% | Market Cap: $176.2B
Johnson & Johnson is a leader in the pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer products industries.

Procter & Gamble (PG)
Yield: 3.2% | Market Cap: $178.8B
The Procter & Gamble Company is a leading consumer products company the markets household and personal care products in more than 180 countries.

Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)
Yield: 3.1% | Market Cap: $216.2B
Microsoft, the world's largest software company, develops PC software, including the Windows operating system and the Office application suite.

As with past screens, the data presented above is in its raw form. Some of the the companies would be disqualified for poor dividend fundamentals. However some of the others may be worth additional due diligence.

My database, D4L-Data, is an Open Office spreadsheet containing more than 20 columns of information on the 210+ companies that I track. The data is sortable and has built-in buttons and macros to make it easy to use. Companies included in the list are those that have had a history of dividend growth. The D4L-Data spreadsheet is a part of D4L-Premium Services and is updated each Saturday for subscribers.

Full Disclosure: Long MSFT, PG, JNJ, T, INTC, and PEP in my dividend growth portfolio and VZ in my high-yield portfolio. See a list of all my dividend growth holdings here.

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Tags: [MSFT] [PG] [JNJ] [T] [INTC] [VZ] [PEP]