Top Five Dividend Stocks ‘Endorsed’ By Hedge Funds

In JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), a total of 100 funds among those we track disclosed holding shares, flat over the quarter. Lansdowne Partners and Fisher Asset Management reported ownership of 20.16 million shares and 13.99 million shares as of the end of December, respectively. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)’s stock has inched down by 2.40% over the last 52 weeks as the decrease in oil and turmoil in China has put more pressure on banks. Nevertheless, JPMorgan pays a dividend of $0.44 per share, which gives its stock a yield of 3.04%. This compares with a yield of 3.12% of Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), 0.51% of Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) and 1.65% of Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC). JPMorgan Chase & Co has consistently increased its dividend over the last several years and since the bank last year passed the Fed’s stress test, it is likely to increase its dividend and buybacks this year as well.

Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) is another financial stock that made the list of the most popular dividend stocks among the funds we track. As stated earlier, the stock sports a dividend yield of 3.12%. Wells Fargo’s stock plunged by more than 12% over the last year, but, similar to JPMorgan, the bank passed the stress tests last year, which allowed it to hike the dividend by 7% to $0.375. Last year, Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) returned $12.60 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks. Overall, a total of 85 funds from our database reported long positions in Wells Fargo, amassing $32.56 billion worth of stock at the end of December. Billionaire Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway is the largest shareholder of Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) and, in the last three months of 2015, it added 9.41 million shares to its position, taking it to 479.70 million shares.

Finally, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) pays a dividend of $0.38 per share and its stock has a dividend yield of 5.28%, which is the largest in this list. In addition, General Motors’ stock slid by 24% over the last 12 months, while the company still managed to report strong results and provided a strong outlook with car sales expected to grow amid lower gas prices. The decline set General Motors’ stock trading at just 5.0 times forward earnings, which makes it very cheap. Even though among the funds we track General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) is not among the 10 most popular stocks, it is the favorite car maker and a total of 84 funds from our database held shares at the end of December, versus 84 funds a quarter earlier. More specifically, Berkshire Hathaway owns 50 million shares of General Motors Company (NYSE:GM), according to its latest 13F filing, while David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital reported ownership of 13.92 million shares as of the end of 2015.

Disclosure: none