Why (& When) to Consider Dividend Stocks in Your Portfolio (2024)

FAQs

Why (& When) to Consider Dividend Stocks in Your Portfolio? ›

Dividend stocks can be a part of an income strategy. They offer opportunities for sector diversification. They could help your portfolio grow over time, possibly with less risk.

Dividend-paying stocks have the potential for income through dividends and capital appreciation, but they come with higher volatility and market risk. The choice between the two depends on your risk tolerance, investment goals, and time horizon.

No matter what stage of life you're in, dividend-paying stocks can be a great way to supplement your income and improve your portfolio's growth potential. Just be sure you research the companies' overall financial health, not just their dividend rates, before investing.

As part of a diversified portfolio, dividend stocks have their place. They offer relative stability, may pay increasing amounts over time and may provide steady income. But relying too heavily on dividend stocks as a primary investment approach could put you at risk and reduce your long-term investment gains.

Dividend investing can be a great investment strategy. Dividend stocks have historically outperformed the S&P 500 with less volatility. That's because dividend stocks provide two sources of return: regular income from dividend payments and capital appreciation of the stock price. This total return can add up over time.

There is no hard and fast rule for how many dividend stocks to start a portfolio, but a good starting point is to aim for a minimum of 10. This will give you a good mix of different companies and sectors and help to diversify your risk.

“One mistake to avoid,” Cabacungan says, “is to buy a company's stock simply because it issues a high dividend.” If the company has leveraged excessive debt to fund the dividend, it could come at the expense of future profitability and hurt growth prospects.

If you are looking to create wealth and have a longer time horizon, staying invested in growth will enable you to enjoy longer returns. But if you are looking for a more immediate return and steady cash flow, dividend investing could be the best choice for you.

What Is a Good Dividend Yield? Yields from 2% to 6% are generally considered to be a good dividend yield, but there are plenty of factors to consider when deciding if a stock's yield makes it a good investment. Your own investment goals should also play a big role in deciding what a good dividend yield is for you.

At the most basic level, you only need to own a stock by the ex-dividend date (or deadline) in order to get the dividend. And you can sell the stock a day or two after that, once everything settles. So in theory, you only need to own the stock for a couple of days to get the dividend.

What is the fallacy of dividends? ›

The dividend fallacy — believing that dividends are free money — is one of the most common mistakes investors make. In reality, dividends are not “free money.” Dividends are an inflexible, tax-inefficient way to receive investment income while reducing the diversification in a portfolio.

Companies that don't pay dividends on stocks are typically reinvesting the money that might otherwise go to dividend payments into the expansion and overall growth of the company. This means that, over time, their share prices are likely to appreciate in value.

Dividend investing has become an important source of potential income for investors. But not all dividend strategies produce the same results. High dividend yield strategies have a yield advantage, but tend to underperform when interest rates rise.

The 20%-25% Profit-Taking Rule in Action

View the chart markups below to see how — and why — you want to take most profits once a stock is up 20%-25% from its most recent buy point.

To generate $5,000 per month in dividends, you would need a portfolio value of approximately $1 million invested in stocks with an average dividend yield of 5%. For example, Johnson & Johnson stock currently yields 2.7% annually. $1 million invested would generate about $27,000 per year or $2,250 per month.

Dividend-paying stocks, on average, tend to be less volatile than non-dividend-paying stocks. A dividend stream, especially when reinvested to take advantage of the power of compounding, can help build wealth over time. However, dividends do have a cost.

Depending on how much money you have in those stocks or funds, their growth over time, and how much you reinvest your dividends, you could be generating enough money to live off of each year, without having any other retirement plan.

Monthly dividend stocks can provide predictable income and make budgeting easy since they pay dividends every month of the year. While most companies pay dividends quarterly, there are 80 stocks that pay dividends monthly. And many of them have high dividend yields above 7%.