2024-05-04 03:47:00 ET
Tobacco giant Altria (NYSE: MO) provides investors with a mouthwatering dividend yield of 9%. It's a far higher rate than the S&P 500 average, which yields just 1.4%. But the danger with Altria is that its payout ratio is high, and its long-term future is questionable given the waning demand for cigarettes. Investors who buy the stock are taking on considerable risk, especially if they are relying on its dividend payments to continue.
Rather than investing in a high-risk dividend stock, investors may be better off buying shares of a company which offers a more modest payout but whose future is much safer in the longer run. One of the best and safest dividend stocks that you can buy and forget about today is consumer goods behemoth Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) . Here's a closer look at why it may be a no-brainer buy for long-term income investors despite its much smaller yield of 2.5%.
On April 9, Procter & Gamble announced that it would be increasing its quarterly dividend. At $1.0065, the new dividend is 7% higher than the $0.9407 that the consumer goods company was previously paying. And over the past five years, Procter & Gamble has increased its dividend by 35% from the $0.7459 that it was paying investors back in 2019.
For further details see:
Forget Altria: Could This Be the Safest Dividend Stock to Own?