Wall Street offers investors no shortage of ways to grow their wealth. With thousands of publicly traded companies and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to choose from, pretty much everyone is assured of finding one or more securities that'll help them meet their investment goals.
But among these countless avenues investors can take, few have proved more successful over long periods than buying and holding high-quality dividend stocks.
Businesses that pay a regular dividend to their shareholders typically have a few things in common. They're often:
Profitable on a recurring basis.
Time-tested in the sense that they've successfully navigated one or more recessions.
Capable of providing a transparent long-term growth outlook.
In The Power of Dividends: Past, Present, and Future, the researchers at Hartford Funds, in collaboration with Ned Davis Research, compared the performance of dividend stocks to non-payers over a 50-year stretch (1973-2023). What they found was income stocks more than doubled up the non-payers on an annualized return basis -- 9.17% for the dividend stocks vs. 4.27% for the non-payers -- and did so while being less-volatile than the benchmark S&P 500.
With the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both falling into correction territory in March, anchoring your portfolio with dividend stocks can be an especially smart move. What follows are three ultra-high-yield dividend stocks -- sporting an average yield of 9.87% -- which make for no-brainer buys in April.
Annaly Capital Management: 13.79% yield
The first supercharged dividend stock that can be confidently scooped up by investors to begin the second quarter is mortgage real estate investment trust (REIT) Annaly Capital Management(NYSE: NLY). Although Annaly's nearly 13.8% yield might sound unsustainable, it's averaged a roughly 10% yield over the last two decades and has declared approximately $27 billion in dividends since its October 1997 initial public offering.
Mortgage REITs might very well be Wall Street's most-disliked industry. They're highly sensitive to interest rate changes, as well as the velocity of moves made the by nation's central bank. The Federal Reserve rapidly increasing in its federal funds rate from March 2022 to July 2023, coupled with an inversion of the Treasury yield curve, drove up short-term borrowing costs and weighed down net interest margin and book value for Annaly and its peers.
The good news for Annaly Capital Management is the central bank is now in the midst of a rate-easing cycle. Moreover, the Fed is walking on eggshells when it comes to shifting its monetary policy. The more telegraphed and deliberate the Fed is with its rate adjustments, the more time Annaly and its peers will have to adjust their asset portfolios to maximize profitability.
Additionally, Annaly Capital Management predominantly deals with agency securities in its $80.9 billion portfolio. An "agency" asset is backed by the federal government in the event that the underlying instrument (in this case, mortgage-backed securities (MBS)) were to default. While this added protection pushes down the yields Annaly nets on the MBSs it buys, it also opens the door to the use of leverage to pump up its profitability.
With yield-curve inversions lessening, the Fed no longer involved in MBS purchases, and mortgage REITs historically performing their best when interest rates are declining, the table is set for Annaly Capital Management's net interest margin and book value to climb.
Grocery stores are one of the key industries Realty Income leases to. Image source: Getty Images.
Realty Income: 5.56% yield
A second ultra-high-yield dividend stock that makes for a no-brainer buy in April is top-tier retail REIT, Realty Income(NYSE: O). Realty Income, which doles out its dividend on a monthly basis, has increased its payout for 110 consecutive quarters.
Though the prospect of a U.S. recession has weighed on retail stocks, Realty Income is ideally positioned to take advantage of the long-term growth of the U.S. economy.
Its key advantage can be found in the composition of its commercial real estate (CRE) portfolio. It closed out 2024 with 15,621 CRE properties, approximately 91% of which are, per Realty Income, "resilient to economic downturns and/or isolated from e-commerce pressures."
If investors dig into which companies and industries Realty Income leases to, they'll find that they're predominantly brand-name businesses in stand-alone locations that drive traffic to their stores in any economic climate. For example, even if the U.S. were to fall into a recession, consumers are still going to visit grocery stores, drug stores, dollar stores, convenience stores, and automotive service locations, all of which among the top industries by annualized contractual rent in Realty Income's CRE portfolio.
Vetting and contract length matter, too. A very low percentage of the company's lessees fail to pay their rent, and most tend to lock in their rental agreements for long periods. There's little concern about frequent turnover, and the company's funds from operations is highly predictable.
Realty Income is also historically inexpensive, relative to its future cash flow. Over the trailing-five-year period, shares have averaged a multiple to cash flow of roughly 16.2. But based on the consensus Wall Street forecast for 2026 cash flow, investors can pick up shares of Realty Income right now for 22% below this five-year average.
Alliance Resource Partners: 10.26% yield
The third no-brainer ultra-high-yield dividend stock to buy in April is coal producer Alliance Resource Partners(NASDAQ: ARLP). Yes, I did say "coal," and also yes, the company's yield of more than 10% has been sustainable.
When this decade began, coal stocks were believed to be as good as dead. The push toward clean-energy solutions, such as solar and wind, were expected to meaningfully reduce demand for dirtier fuels. But when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it tipped the scales back toward time-tested energy sources. Even though the spot price of coal is now well off of its pandemic high, Alliance Resource has enjoyed a resurgence in demand.
Three factors allow this relatively little-known coal producer to stand out from its peers. First, management has done an excellent job of locking in volume and price commitments years in advance. Securing deals when the price of coal was higher than it is now will ensure consistent operating cash flow for years to come. It also leads to a level of cost and cash flow transparency that most mining-oriented companies lack.
Secondly, the company's management team has historically taken a very conservative approach when expanding production. Even when the per-ton coal price rocketed higher during the pandemic, Alliance Resource Partners' management team edged production higher. While many peers have struggled under the weight of crippling debt, Alliance Resource ended 2024 with only $221.4 million in net debt. Its financial flexibility is superior to other coal producers.
The third variable that makes Alliance Resource Partners special has been its foray into oil and natural gas royalties. Diversifying its operations into oil and gas allows the company to take advantage of pure increases in the spot price of two core energy commodities.
At an estimated 8.5 times forward-year earnings, Alliance Resource Partners' stock remains a solid value amid a historically pricey market.
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Sean Williams has positions in Annaly Capital Management. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Realty Income. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
