Stocks With the Highest Dividend Yields in the S&P 500

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last updated 21 November 2024

Dividend investors should know that blindly buying stocks with the highest dividend yields can be a dangerous game.

Indeed, an unusually high dividend yield is often a warning sign. That's because stock prices and dividend yields move in opposite directions. It's possible that a too-good-to-be-true dividend yield is simply an effect of a stock having lost a lot of value.

And anytime a company's stock is slumping badly, it's worth wondering if its dividend is sustainable at current levels.

Case in point: look at what happened with Newell Brands (NWL) last year.

Newell, whose portfolio of products ranges from Rubbermaid and Sharpie to Oster and Yankee Candle, was having a tough 2023. Shares lost a third of their value through mid-May, pushing up the yield on NWL's dividend to as much as 9.7%.

That seemed pretty obviously unsustainable, and indeed it was. In the spring, Newell cut its quarterly dividend by almost 70% to 7 cents per share. (The company said the cash formerly earmarked for shareholders will be used to pay down debt, which is probably a good idea.) Nonetheless, the yield on Newell's dividend tumbled to below 3% from knocking on the door of 10%.

Stocks with the highest dividend yields

So, yes, sometimes stocks with the highest dividend yields can be fool's gold. And this could be pertinent to some of the stocks with the highest dividend yields in the S&P 500 today. Be forewarned that in some cases the names below have entered elite-yield territory only because their share prices have come under stress. In turn, that has some analysts concerned about the sustainability of payouts going forward.

Happily for dividend investors, some Buy-rated blue chip stocks anchor the list. Verizon Communications (VZ), one of Wall Street's top Dow Jones stocks, has raised its dividend annually for two decades. Meanwhile, Pfizer (PFE) has a 15-year track record of consecutive hikes to its payout.

With those explanations and caveats out of the way, below please find the 15 S&P 500 stocks with the highest dividend yields.

Market data, analysts' estimates and analysts' recommendations are as of November 21, 2024, courtesy of YCharts and S&P Global Market Intelligence. Stocks are listed by forward dividend yield, from highest to lowest.

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Stocks With the Highest Dividend Yields in the S&P 500
Company (Ticker)	Forward Dividend Yield	Analysts' Consensus Recommendation
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)	12.14%	Hold
Altria Group (MO)	7.07%	Hold
Pfizer (PFE)	6.74%	Buy
LyondellBasell Industries (LYB)	6.50%	Hold
Verizon Communications (VZ)	6.42%	Buy
Dow (DOW)	6.37%	Hold
Crown Castle (CCI)	6.00%	Hold
Franklin Resources (BEN)	5.73%	Sell
Healthpeak Properties (DOC)	5.60%	Buy
Ford Motor (F)	5.59%	Hold
Realty Income (O)	5.56%	Buy
VICI Properties (VICI)	5.39%	Buy
The AES Corp (AES)	5.20%	Buy
Kraft Heinz (KHC)	5.18%	Buy
Conagra Brands (CAG)	5.16%	Hold

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Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.