Looking for Dividend Paying Stocks?

I check my site logs from time to time. I've noticed that many people arrive here from search engines, looking for "dividend paying stocks." Are you looking for a list?

There are thousands of dividend paying stocks. I doubt there is a site that lists them all. As with most quantitative financial information, using a stock screener is your best bet (not to get a buy list, but a list for further research). Here is a list and review of stock screeners. Searching for stocks with a dividend yield greater than or equal to 0.01 should provide you with a list of almost all the dividend paying stocks you can buy.

Note, though, that stock screeners (and financial sites) can have outdated information, so the lists they give you are not complete, and may not be accurate. Some listed companies have paid out a one time special dividend, others have eliminated their dividends but are still listed as having them (Whole Foods [WFMI] and General Motors [GM] are recent examples), and some may have initiated payments but are not yet listed.

Or perhaps you're looking for great dividend paying stocks. Some past winners have included Altria (MO), Pepsi (PEP), and Pfizer (PFE). It's a matter of opinion what the best dividend paying stocks are now. I really like General Electric (GE), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Philip Morris International (PM), Procter & Gamble (PG), and Realty Income Corp (O). (I own GE, JNJ, PM, and PG.)

You can find a list of past great dividend paying stocks (which may be great in the future too) here.

Some of the best places to look for dividend paying stocks with great future potential include Jubak's Journal and Dividends4Life (and DivNet). You may also be interested in the Dogs of the Dow.

But don't simply take others' word for it. Do your own research. A pretty good book on how to find great dividend paying stocks on your own is Josh Peters' The Ulitmate Dividend Playbook.