Dividend stocks have gotten incredibly popular among investors as the search for income has led many to take on more risk in their portfolios in order to generate the cash flow they need from their investments. With the S&P 500 once again at new highs, another draw of dividend stocks is that historically, they’ve tended to perform better than the overall market during pullbacks, making more conservative investors feel more comfortable with dividend payers.
But some companies are more generous with dividends than others. Let’s take a look at the 15 blue-chip companies that have paid more than $5 billion in dividends to their shareholders over the past 12 months, according to the latest figures from S&P Capital IQ.
| Rank | Company Name | Amount Paid in Dividends |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) | $10.43 billion |
| 2 | AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) | $10.14 billion |
| 3 | Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) | $7.47 billion* |
| 4 | General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) | $7.37 billion |
| 5 | Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) | $7.21 billion |
| 6 | Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) | $6.99 billion |
| 7 | Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) | $6.76 billion |
| 8 | Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) | $6.62 billion |
| 9 | The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) | $6.42 billion |
| 10 | Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) | $5.60 billion |
| 11 | Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) | $5.56 billion |
| 12 | Philip Morris International | $5.48 billion |
| 13 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) | $5.41 billion |
| 14 | Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) | $5.41 billion |
| 15 | Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) | $5.14 billion |
Source: S&P Capital IQ. *Reflects three quarters of dividend payments.
Increasingly, though, we’ve seen technology stocks start to become dividend payers. Historically, most tech giants have grown fast enough to justify plowing spare cash into internal growth initiatives. But more recently, mature tech companies have had more money than they know what to do with. For instance, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) started paying a dividend last August, caving to pressure from activist investors arguing that the company’s nine-figure cash hoard was a waste of shareholder capital. When S&P Capital IQ includes Apple’s latest augmented dividend payment, it should vault the company into the No. 2 spot. Meanwhile, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has paid dividends longer than Apple, but it too has lifted its payout substantially in recent years to reflect the substantial income that its stalwart Office and Windows software packages produce.
The other area where dividends are making a comeback is in financial stocks. Both Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) made dramatic dividend cuts during the financial crisis after receiving TARP bailouts, but since then, the companies have both bolstered their respective financial conditions. JPMorgan’s latest payout equals its dividend rate from before the 2009 cut, while Wells now pays six times what it did at the height of the crisis. So long as favorable trends in the banking industry last, the return of financial stocks to healthy dividend status will be a welcome turnaround for investors.
Don’t miss out on dividends
These blue-chip examples show how easy it is to get dividend income from your portfolio with promising stocks. With these companies returning billions of dollars to shareholders every year, there’s no reason why you should miss out on the opportunity they present now.
The article These 15 Stocks Are the Most Generous Dividend-Payers in the Market originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Dan Caplinger owns shares of Apple and warrants on JPMorgan and Wells Fargo. You can follow him on Twitter @DanCaplinger. The Motley Fool recommends Apple and Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, and Wells Fargo.
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