5 Best Dividend Stocks to Buy According to Billionaire Louis Bacon

3. Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD)

Bacon’s Stake Value: $26,604,000
Percentage of Louis Bacon’s 13F Portfolio: 0.33%
Dividend Yield: 4.1%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 65

Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) is an America-based biopharmaceutical company. The company was founded in 1987 and ranked third in the list of 10 best dividend stocks to buy according to billionaire Louis Bacon. Gilead Sciences stock has returned more than 11.71% to investors during the course of the past three months.

Like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) and Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Gilead Sciences is a notable stock in Bacon’s Q1 portfolio. On April 29, Gilead Sciences declared a quarterly dividend of $0.71 per share, in line with the previous. The forward yield is 4.13%. On June 11, the FDA approved the use of Gilead Sciences’ Epclusa for curing chronic hepatitis C virus in children as young as three years of age. In April, Bernstein‘s Aaron Gal initiated a coverage on the stock and rated it as “Outperform,” setting the price target at $80.00.

The stock is a new arrival on Louis Bacon’s portfolio, as his hedge fund, Moore Global Investments, bought about 411,628 shares of the company, worth $26.60 million. A total of 65 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) at the end of the first quarter of 2021, down from 72 funds a quarter earlier. 

In its Q3 2020 investor letter, Nelson Roberts Investment Advisors highlighted a few stocks, and Gilead Sciences was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“In the healthcare sector, we sold our position in Gilead (NASDAQ: GILD) as there are no near or medium-term growth drivers for the company. Its popular HIV drug, Truvada, is going off patent this year. Additionally, UnitedHealth Group said it would not cover Gilead’s other HIV drug, Descovy. Lastly, the multiple acquisitions that Gilead has made recently are not ready for prime time, and it will likely be two years or more before any of Gilead’s new drugs have a meaningful impact on revenue.”