Stocks That Pay Monthly Dividends

While you have probably heard about stocks that pay dividends every quarter, did you know that there are many stocks that pay monthly dividends?  When many income investors think about investing for dividends, they naturally look at safe, stable companies like McDonald’s(MCD), Proctor & Gamble(PG), and IBM (IBM), which have a long history of paying quarterly dividends.  These types of dividend stocks are usually financially stable, have a lot of liquidity so they are easy to buy and sell, and have enough income and cash reserves to cover their dividend payouts to investors every three months.

There are a couple of issues that investors in these type of quarterly dividend stocks should consider.  First, the investors income stream is exposed to a single company for each stock that they own, and second, depending on the mix of stocks in the investors portfolio, the dividend income can be very lumpy (i.e. most of the dividend money arrives in one month of the quarter, leaving the remaining two months with very little cash coming in.

Stocks that pay monthly dividends are an alternative that can provide regular, consistent, income to investors, and overcome the two main issues highlighted above.

First, monthly dividend stocks are typically traded on regular stock exchanges, and have enough liquidity for investors to easily buy and sell them.  Stocks that pay monthly dividends are usually trusts, closed end mutual funds, and other investment vehicles that actually own a portfolio of income producing assets.  This benefits investors because they get the diversification of the underlying portfolio owned by these companies, so investors are not as exposed to single company risk as they would be if they owned a single company that paid a quarterly dividend.

Second, since the income stream from stocks that pay monthly dividends comes three times as often as the cash flow from their quarterly brethren, the income is not going to be as lumpy.  This is a significant benefit for investors that need regular income, like retirees that need a passive source of retirement income to meet their monthly needs. 

One of the obvious items that investors considering purchasing stocks that pay monthly dividends over a company that pays a quarterly dividend is understanding the assets that are held by the monthly dividend company.  While this adds an extra research item, it is very easy to find this information in the standard government filings that publicly traded companies have to file with the SEC.

Stocks that pay monthly dividends are a great tool for people looking for consistent regular income.  Since these stocks may be new to you, just click on this link for a list of monthly dividend stocks.

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Highest Dividend Stocks

Income investors looking for a good return on their investment often look for the highest dividend stocks, or more precisely, the highest yielding dividend stocks.  This can also be a good place for value investors to look for potential buy candidates because high dividend yields can be caused by a stock price being temporarily low (i.e. undervalued stocks), which simultaneously raises the yield.  However, the highest dividend stocks can also be a dangerous place to find buy candidates.

Normally when income investors are looking for dividends stocks, they are looking at monthly dividend stocks or stocks that pay dividends quarterly with the highest yield (adjusted for risk).  The issue with the highest dividend stocks on the top dividend stock list is that they are usually amongst the most risky stocks a conservative income investor will look at.  Many of these stocks have high dividend yields because the underlying stock price has fallen, while the dividend payment is presumably staying the same, giving the appearance of a high yield.  Stocks with high dividends should raise a flag with any income investor to be extra diligent doing their homework.  The biggest question you’ll need to ask yourself is whether or not the dividend is safe?

The first thing an income investor should screen for in stocks paying dividends is whether or not the stock is consistently profitable.  As they say on Wall Street, profits drive dividends, and many times, stocks with high dividends are also losing money – their dividends place them on the highest dividend stocks list because of the additional risk.

Another attribute that you should look for in profitable top dividend stocks is how well their earnings cover their dividends – also known as the dividend payout ratio.  Ideally, you want to see a stock paying out less than 50% of it’s earnings as dividends.  If the high dividend stocks you are looking at have a dividend payout ratio of 50% or less, the dividend has a higher probability of being safe – in other words it is less likely to be reduced or cancelled.

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List of Monthly Dividend Stocks

A list of monthly dividend stocks is sometimes hard to find, so I’ve compiled a list of stocks with monthly dividends here.  Monthly dividend stocks can be useful for people who are trying to smooth out the dividend income from there investments over all of the months in a quarter.  This helps counter the affect of having a lot of dividend paying stocks that pay quarterly dividends in one particular month of a quarter, leaving the rest of the months in the quarter without much dividend income.  Here is the list of monthly dividend stocks that I’ve found so far, if you know of others, please email me, so I can add them to the list for everybody to see.

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Monthly Dividend Stocks

Monthly dividend stocks can be a good idea for income investors to create a steady income stream.  If you are looking for regular income, you may want to consider monthly dividend stocks.  Thats right, there are stocks that pay monthly dividends.  These monthly dividend stocks are just like their quarterly dividend stock brethren, but they pay out their dividends – you guessed it – on a monthly basis.

Many people interested in income investing have stocks that pay quarterly dividends in their portfolio, as these are the most common type of dividend paying stocks.  Depending on the dividend payment dates, this can lead to inconsistent monthly income – for example you get a lot of dividend income in the first month of the quarter, and very little dividend income in the last month of the quarter.  One way to smooth this out is to buy stocks that issue dividends in different months of the quarter.  Another way to set up a more steady income stream is to put monthly dividend stocks in your portfolio.

Most stocks that pay monthly dividends are investment trusts, closed end funds,  or holding companies that own many income producing securities, that issue the income from these investments in the form of  a monthly dividend.  The list of monthly dividend stocks is nearly 300 long.

Adding stocks with a monthly dividend payment can help smooth out the monthly income in your portfolio.  Click on the link above for a list of monthly dividend stocks.

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Value stock investing is an investment strategy that looks for stocks which are undervalued when compared to a value you calculate with various fundamental analysis indicators.  While the description may sound a little complicated, you will see that with a little practice, fundamental analysis for value stock investing is not as difficult as it sounds, in fact, with readily available online tools, finding good value stocks is easy.

First a little history – value stock investing was popularized by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, and their 1934 book, Security Analysis, remains popular to this day – many bookstores still stock this one on their shelves.  Famous investors like Warren Buffet and Mario Gabelli have made fortunes using the value stock investing strategy to find under priced stocks to buy.

Value stock investors look for stocks with strong fundamental characteristics, such as business revenue growth, cash flow, earnings growth, book value, and cash flow.  All of these items, and more, are found on company’s quarterly and annual reports.  The key is finding stocks that sell at a bargain price vs. their underlying quality based on these fundamental metrics.  Value stock investors constantly seek out companies that are currently incorrectly valued (i.e. undervalued) by the stock market and therefore have the potential to increase in share price when the market corrects its error in valuation.  Some good value stocks pay higher dividend yields due to their lower price relative to the dividend that they pay (there are even monthly dividend stocks that fall inot this category).

Since value stocks are under priced, this means that they are out of favor with the market, which makes value stock investors contrarians by definition.  Buying value stocks can, at times, be tough psychologically, because in many cases, you are buying companies or industries that are receiving a lot of negative press.  Right now there are companies and industries that you can read about in the news, where nearly every article you read in the business press, or every story about them you watch on television, is very negative.  As I write this article in Spring, 2009, there is a recession in full swing, with banks, housing stocks, and REITs all being whacked the most by the business media.  These are the types of areas where value stock investors are prospecting for good companies with good fundamantal characteristics, that are having their stock prices dragged down with the rest of the companies in their industry.  A good tool for determining if a stock is undervalued is to look at it’s earnings yield.

With the tools, resources, and articles posted on this website, value stock investing will become another tool for you to use in your successful online investing activities.

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