Investing

6 Big Dividend Stocks Wall Street Is Sleeping On

Lee Jackson

Published: January 6, 2024 12:50 pm

Investors love dividend stocks because they provide dependable income and give investors a great opportunity for solid total return. Total return includes interest, capital gains, dividends, and distributions realized over time. In other words, the actual investment or portfolio return consists of dividend income and stock appreciation.

Wall Street tends to follow the crowd on almost everything, as those in the investment business often know others with similar jobs and share portfolios and ideas. One thing that has proven true over many years is that some top companies don’t get the love they deserve due to a lack of analyst coverage and many other reasons.

We screened our 24/7 Wall St. dividend stock database for stocks that pay fat and dependable dividends; they look like good investment ideas but need to be noticed by the analysts and portfolio managers who run the show. We found six companies that Wall Street seemingly ignores and is sleeping on but look ready to soar.

Ares Capital

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This stock is a high-yielding Business Development Company (BDC) paying a massive 9.59% dividend. Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: ARCC) specializes in acquisition, recapitalization, mezzanine debt, restructurings, rescue financing, and leveraged buyout transactions of middle-market companies.

It also makes growth capital and general refinancing. It prefers to invest in companies engaged in primary and growth manufacturing, business services, consumer products, health care products and services, and information technology service sectors.

The fund will also consider investments in:

• Restaurants
• Retail
• Oil and gas
• Technology

It focuses on investments in the following:

• Northeast
• Mid-Atlantic
• Southeast
• Southwest regions

Ares Capital invests through:

• Revolvers
• First-lien loans
• Warrants
• Unitranche structures
• Second-lien loans
• Mezzanine debt
• Private high yield
• Junior Capital
• Subordinated debt
• Non-control preferred and common equity

Berry Corporation

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While off the radar, trading at just 12 times trailing earnings and posting a stunning 13.75% dividend, this could be a huge winner. Berry Corporation (NYSE: BRY) is an independent upstream energy company that develops and produces conventional oil reserves in the western United States.

It operates through

• Exploration and Production (E&P)
• Well Servicing and Abandonment (CJWS) segments

The E&P segment develops and produces onshore, low geologic risk, and long-lived conventional oil and gas reserves in California and Utah.

The CJWS segment provides healthy site services in California to oil and natural gas production companies with a focus on:

• Well servicing,
• Well abandonment services and water logistics and offers
• Rig-based and coiled tubing-based
• Healthy maintenance and workover services
• Completion services
• Fluid management services
• Fishing and rental services
• Ancillary oilfield services.

Big 5 Sporting Goods

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While another off-the-radar stock pays an 8.21% dividend, this could be a total return home run. Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation (NASDAQ: BGFV) Operates as a sporting goods retailer in the western United States.

Its products include:

• Athletic shoes
• Apparel
• Accessories.

The company also offers a selection of:

• Outdoor and athletic equipment for team sports, fitness, camping, hunting, fishing, tennis, golf, winter and summer recreation, and home recreation
• It also provides private-label items, such as shoes, apparel, camping equipment, fishing supplies, and snow sports equipment
• Big 5 Sporting Goods also sells personal label merchandise under its Golden Bear, Harsh, Pacifica, and Rugged Exposure trademarks
• It also operates an e-commerce platform under the Big 5 Sporting Goods name

British American Tobacco

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This European giant continues to print money and pays a massive 9.40% dividend. British American Tobacco plc (NYSE: BTI) offers:

• Vapor
• Tobacco heating
• Modern oral nicotine products
• Combustible cigarettes
• Traditional oral products, such as snus and moist snuff

The company offers products under these brands:

• Vuse
• Glo
• Velo
• Grizzly
• Kodiak
• Dunhill
• Kent
• Lucky Strike
• Pall Mall
• Rothmans
• Camel
• Natural American Spirit
• Newport
• Vogue
• Viceroy
• Kool
• Peter Stuyvesant
• Craven A
• State Express 555
• Shuang Xi brands

MPLX

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This company is one of the top holdings in the Alerian MLP energy exchange-traded fund, paying shareholders a strong 9.27% dividend. MPLX LP. (NYSE: MPLX) is primarily engaged in:

• transporting crude oil and refined products and terminating in the US Midwest and Gulf Coast regions and
• natural gas gathering and processing in the northeast from its prior acquisition of MarkWest Energy in 2015.

Independent US refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp formed MPLX.

The company’s assets include a network of

• Crude oil and refined product pipelines
• Inland marine business
• Light-product terminals
• Storage caverns
• Refinery tanks
• Docks
• Loading racks and associated piping
• Crude and light-product marine terminals

MPLX also owns crude oil and natural gas gathering systems, pipelines, and natural gas and NGL processing and fractionation facilities in key U.S. supply basins.

OneMain Holdings

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This off-the-radar company has been around for over 100 years and pays a rich 8.10% dividend. OneMain Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: OMF), a financial service holding company, engages in the consumer finance and insurance businesses.

The company originates, underwrites, and services personal loans secured by automobiles, other titled collateral, or unsecured.

OneMain Holdings also offers

• Credit cards and insurance products comprising life, disability, and involuntary unemployment insurance
• Optional non-credit insurance
• Guaranteed asset protection coverage as a waiver product or insurance
• Membership plans
• Network of approximately 1,400 branch offices in 44 states in the United States and through its website onemainfinancial.com.

Billionaire George Soros once had a prominent position in the company as he bought a massive 275,000 shares in the fourth quarter of 2022, but we could not confirm that it was still in his holdings. With excellent books and risk controls that keep net charge-offs low, the company offers big-time risk rewards for investors.