Passive income is characterized by its ability to generate revenue without requiring the earner’s continuous active effort, making it a desirable financial strategy for those seeking to diversify their income streams or achieve financial independence. The more passive income can help cover rising costs, such as mortgages, insurance, taxes, and other expenses, the easier it is for investors to set aside money for future needs as they prepare for retirement. Dependable recurring dividends from quality high-yield stocks are a recipe for success. When you have a portfolio that generates consistent, rising passive income and has the potential to deliver sizable total returns, you are in good financial shape. That’s why we love the idea of buying Dividend Kings that have lagged the market this year.
Companies that have raised dividends for shareholders for 50 years or more are the kinds of investments passive income investors need to own. Dependability is crucial for individuals seeking to increase their annual income through dividend stock investments. The Dividend Kings are the 56 companies that have raised their dividends for at least 50 consecutive years, a testament to their dependability and reliability. Those are two “must-have” items for investors who rely on passive income to boost their overall revenue. Unlike the Dividend Aristocrats, the Dividend Kings do not have to be members of the S&P 500.
With the stock market trading at massive all-time highs thanks to the AI/data center technology trade, which is the greatest momentum trade we have seen in a generation, for those looking for solid passive income and a potential total return home run, we found five Dividend Kings that may be the perfect idea for safety-conscious growth and income investors. All five are rated Buy by the top Wall Street firms we cover.
Abbott Laboratories
This healthcare giant announced a 6.8% dividend increase in December, marking the 54th consecutive year of dividend growth, and its dividend has risen more than 70% since 2020, currently standing at 2.69%. Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT | ABT Price Prediction) is a global healthcare company. Its principal business is the discovery, development, manufacture, and sale of a broad and diversified line of healthcare products. The stock has been trading near its 2026 lows. The decline stems from the lowered 2026 adjusted EPS guidance issued after the Exact Sciences acquisition. While Wall Street maintains a bullish longer-term view, the near-term guidance cut has weighed on the shares year to date.
Abbott Labs segments include:
- Established Pharmaceutical Products, which is engaged in the international sales of a broad line of branded generic pharmaceutical products.
- Diagnostic Products sells diagnostic systems and tests worldwide to blood banks, hospitals, commercial laboratories, and alternative-care testing sites.
- Nutritional Products is engaged in worldwide sales of a broad line of adult and pediatric nutritional products.
- Medical Devices is involved in the worldwide sales of rhythm management, electrophysiology, heart failure, vascular, structural heart, neuromodulation, and diabetes care products.
BTIG Research has a Buy rating with a $131 target price.
Hormel Foods
Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL) is an American food processing company founded in 1891 in Austin, Minnesota. Its stock trades at 13.07 times forward earnings estimates. Hormel offers dual pricing power through both branded products and private-label manufacturing, and a reliable 4.69% dividend. The company develops, processes, and distributes a range of meat, nuts, and other food products to retail, foodservice, deli, and commercial customers in the United States and internationally. Hormel has declined 17.4% over the past year, meaningfully underperforming the S&P 500, which has rallied nearly 14.4%. The stock continues to face pressure from higher input costs, elevated logistics expenses, and weak gross profit margins. Nevertheless, it remains one of the highest-yielding Dividend Kings.
It operates through three segments:
- Retail
- Food Service
- International
Hormel is a Dividend King with over 50 years of dividend increases and is a consumer staples company focused on protein-based packaged foods. Its yield is historically high, and the Hormel Foundation’s oversight ensures dividend reliability. It is restructuring its portfolio and cutting costs to improve performance.
The company provides various perishable products, including fresh meats, frozen items, refrigerated meal solutions, sausages, hams, guacamoles, and bacon, and shelf-stable products, including canned luncheon meats, nut butter, snack nuts, chili, shelf-stable microwaveable meals, hash, stews, tortillas, salsas, tortilla chips, nutritional food supplements, and others. It sells its products under these brands:
- Hormel
- Always Tender
- Applegate
- Austin Blues
- Bacon 1
- Black Label
- Bread Ready
- Burke
- Café H
- Ceratti
- Chi-Chi’s
- Columbus
- Compleats
- Corn Nuts
- Cure 81
- Dan’s Prize
- Di Lusso
- Dinty Moore
- Don Miguel
- Doña Maria
- Embasa
- Fast N Easy
- Fire Braised
- Fontanini
- Happy Little Plants
- Herdez
- Hormel Gatherings
- Hormel Square Table
- Hormel Vital Cuisine
- House of Tsang
- Jennie-O
- Justin’s
- La Victoria
- Layout
- Lloyd’s
- Mary Kitchen
- Mr. Peanut
- Natural Choice
- Nut-rition
- Old Smokehouse
- Oven Ready
- Pillow Pack
- Planters
- Rosa Grande
- Sadler’s Smokehouse
- Skippy
- Spam
- Special Recipe
- Thick & Easy
- Valley Fresh
- Wholly
Barclays has an Overweight rating with a $30 target price.
Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) is an American multinational personal care company that primarily produces paper-based consumer products. It manufactures and markets personal care and consumer tissue products worldwide. The company remains a persistent laggard among consumer staples Dividend Kings. The stock now offers an attractive dividend yield of 4.61%, a direct result of the significant price compression it has endured. Like Hormel, Kimberly-Clark has been pressured by tariff-related cost increases and softening consumer demand.
It operates through three segments. The Personal Care segment offers a diverse range of products, including:
- Disposable diapers
- Swim pants, training and youth pants, baby wipes
- Feminine and incontinence care products, as well as related products under the Huggies, Pull-Ups, Little Swimmers, GoodNites, DryNites, Sweety, Kotex, U by Kotex, Intimus, Depends, Plenitud, Softex, Poise, and other brand names
The Consumer Tissue segment provides facial and bathroom tissues, paper towels, napkins, and related products under the brand names.
- Kleenex
- Scott
- Cottonelle
- Viva
- Andrex
- Scottex
- Neve
The K-C Professional segment offers wipers, tissues, towels, apparel, soaps, and sanitizers under the Kleenex, Scott, WypAll, Kimtech, and KleenGuard brands.
In 2025, Kimberly-Clark announced it would acquire Kenvue (NYSE: KVUE) in a $48.7 billion deal, with the transaction expected to close in the second half of 2026. The acquisition will create a combined consumer health and wellness company, with Kenvue shareholders receiving cash and stock. Kenvue shareholders will get $3.50 in cash plus 0.14625 shares of Kimberly-Clark.
Bank of America has a Buy rating with a $120 target price.
PepsiCo
This top consumer staples stock reported solid first-quarter earnings and will continue to supply all the goods for summer picnics and parties. PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) is a global food and beverage company with a very solid 4.20% dividend yield. Activist investor Elliott Investment Management recently took a $4 billion stake in PepsiCo, revealing a strategy to unlock value within the company’s iconic brand by focusing on core strengths, such as innovation and brand marketing, rather than its capital-intensive bottling operations. This move caused PepsiCo’s stock to surge, with Elliott believing the company could see over 50% upside if its proposed strategic changes were implemented. However, these changes would involve a very long-term transformation.
Its Frito-Lay North America segment offers:
- Lays and Ruffles potato chips
- Doritos, Tostitos, and Santitas tortilla chips
- Cheetos cheese-flavored snacks, branded dips
- Fritos corn chips
The company’s Quaker Foods North America segment provides:
- Quaker Oatmeal
- Grits
- Rice cakes
- Natural granola and oat squares
- Pearl Milling mixes and syrups
- Quaker Chewy granola bars
- Cap’n Crunch cereal
- Life cereal
- Rice-A-Roni side dishes
PepsiCo’s North America Beverages segment offers beverage concentrates, fountain syrups, and finished goods under these brands:
- Pepsi
- Gatorade
- Mountain Dew
- Diet Pepsi
- Aquafina
- Diet Mountain Dew
- Tropicana Pure Premium
- Sierra Mist
- Mug
Goldman Sachs has a Buy rating with a $183 target price.
Stanley Black & Decker
The world’s largest tool company has 50 manufacturing facilities in the United States and more than 100 worldwide, and shares trade at 13.54 times forward earnings estimates. With the potential for the economy to slow down somewhat, you can bet that the do-it-yourself legions will fix rather than buy new, and this legendary stock is a solid idea now. Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK) provides hand tools, power tools, outdoor products, and related accessories in the United States, Canada, Other Americas, Europe, and Asia.
The company has struggled amid persistent weakness in the housing and construction markets. The stock carries an elevated dividend yield of 3.52%, reflecting significant price weakness over the past few years. It has traded near multi-year lows as the anticipated housing market recovery continues to stall.
Its Tools & Outdoor segment offers professional-grade corded and cordless electric power tools and equipment, including:
- Drills
- Impact wrenches and drivers
- Grinders, saws, routers, and sanders
- Pneumatic tools and fasteners, such as nail guns, nails, staplers and staples, and concrete and masonry anchors; corded and cordless electric power tools
- Hand-held vacuums, paint tools, and cleaning appliances
- Leveling and layout tools, planes, hammers, demolition tools, clamps, vises, knives, saws, chisels, and industrial and automotive tools
- Drill bits, screwdriver bits, router bits, abrasives, saw blades, and threading products
- Toolboxes, sawhorses, medical cabinets, and engineered storage solutions
- Electric and gas-powered lawn and garden products
This segment sells its products under these brand names:
- DeWalt
- Craftsman
- Black+Decker
- Stanley
- Flex Volt
- Irwin
- Lenox
The company’s Industrial segment provides:
- Threaded fasteners, blind rivets and tools, blind inserts and tools
- Drawn arc weld studs and systems
- Engineered plastic and mechanical fasteners
- Self-piercing riveting systems
- Precision nut running systems
- Micro fasteners
- High-strength structural fasteners
- Axle swage, latches, heat shields, pins, couplings, fittings, and other engineered products
- Attachments used on excavators and handheld tools
This segment sells its products through a direct sales force and third-party distributors to various industries, including automotive, manufacturing, electronics, construction, aerospace, and others.
Barclays has an Overweight rating on the shares and a $95 target price.
Final Thought
The silver lining for income investors is that beaten-down Dividend Kings like Hormel and Kimberly-Clark are now offering historically attractive dividend yields. Because their share prices have fallen without any dividend cuts, and their legacy Dividend King status suggests they likely won’t ever be cut, new buyers can lock in significantly higher entry yields, essentially getting paid more income to wait patiently for a recovery.
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