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

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last updated 17 March 2023

Experienced equity income investors know that blindly buying stocks with the highest dividend yields can be a dangerous game.

Indeed, an unusually high dividend yield can actually be 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 a side effect of a stock having lost a lot of value.

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And anytime a stock is slumping badly, it's worth wondering if the underlying company's current dividend is sustainable.

Case in point: look at what just happened with VF Corp. (VFC (opens in new tab)).

VFC is an apparel and footwear company known for brands such as Vans, The North Face, Timberland and Supreme. It's also a member of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats – an index of S&P 500 companies that have raised their dividends for at least 25 consecutive years. This group is widely considered Wall Street's best dividend stocks.

VF Corp. has hiked its dividend every year for 50 years. But that streak – and the company's membership in the Dividend Aristocrats – is now at risk. On Feb. 7, VFC cut its quarterly dividend by 41% to 30 cents a share from 51 cents a share.

Prior to the cut, the dividend yield on VFC stock – an eye-watering 7.1% – was among the highest in the S&P 500. At the current rate of 30 cents per share quarterly, the dividend yield on VFC stock projects to 5.6%.

At 5.6%, VFC's dividend yield remains extremely attractive by the standards of today's market. The previous yield, however, was so high that it was pretty obviously unsustainable. After all, the reason VFC's dividend yield topped 7% in the first place was because the stock lost more than half its value over the past year.

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So, yes, sometimes stocks with the highest dividend yields can be fool's gold. And this could be pertinent to the stocks with the highest dividend yields in the S&P 500.

Four of the following five stocks with the highest dividend yields in the S&P 500 hail from the oil and gas sector. Be aware that their dividend yields are unusually elevated these days because they pay both base and variable dividends.

Some quick background on variable dividends: energy companies found themselves swimming in cash over the past couple of years because of persistently high oil and gas prices. But since that party could end at any time – energy prices are cyclical, after all – a number of firms turned to offering variable dividends.

Variable dividends allow firms the flexibility to increase or decrease the amount of cash they return to shareholders as their free cash flow rises or falls. Although investors can pretty much bank on base dividends, a downward adjustment to variable dividends will cause these highly attractive yields to come back down to Earth.

With that caveat out of the way, below please find the five S&P 500 stocks with the highest dividend yields below.

Market data, analysts' estimates and analysts' recommendations are as of March 17, 2023, courtesy of YCharts and S&P Global Market Intelligence. Stocks are listed by dividend yields, from lowest to highest.

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1/5

Altria Group

Market value: $81.4 billion
Dividend yield: 8.1%
Analysts' consensus recommendation: Hold

Altria Group (MO (opens in new tab)) is the only stock on our list that isn't an independent oil & gas exploration and production company. It's also the only member of our group that doesn't juice its yield with variable dividends.

The deal with Altria is that there isn't much growth to be found in the U.S. tobacco business. And so the company known for Marlboro cigarettes and Copenhagen dipping tobacco has to keep shareholders happy with generous and reliable dividends.

But dividends are only part of the story when it comes to Altria's status as a defensive stock. Sales of its addictive products tend to hold up well when economic times get tough. MO stock also tends to trade with much lower volatility relative to the broader market.

Those characteristics – as well as a dividend yield of more than 8% and 13 straight years of dividend increases – make MO a pretty good place to hide in a bad market.

Indeed, over the past 52 weeks, MO's total return (price change plus dividends) comes to -2.6%. The S&P 500, by comparison, generated a total return of -7.6% over the same time frame.

Analysts as a group don't expect Altria to continue to outperform the market over the next 12 to 18 months, however. Their consensus recommendation stands at Hold.

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2/5

Diamondback Energy

Market value: $22.8 billion
Dividend yield: 9.01%
Analysts' consensus recommendation: Buy

Diamondback Energy (FANG (opens in new tab)) is an independent oil and natural gas company with production focused in the Permian Basin of West Texas. Shares returned 8.5% over the past 52 weeks, which is actually something of a disappointment.

That's because FANG is actually a sector laggard. The S&P 500's energy sector is sitting on 52-week total return of 14.4% But analysts say FANG's relative underperformance just sets it up for more outsized gains ahead.

With an average target price of $176.97, the Street gives the stock implied price upside of 43% in the next year or so. Add in the dividend, and the implied total return comes to almost 55%.

Note well, however, that variable dividends account for about a good chunk of FANG's projected yield. In February, the company raised its annual base dividend by 7% to $3.20 per share. FANG also declared a variable cash dividend of $2.15 per share, which was paid on March 10.

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3/5

Devon Energy

Market value: $29.9 billion
Dividend yield: 10.6%
Analysts' consensus recommendation: Buy

Devon Energy (DVN (opens in new tab)) is an independent oil and gas producer with operations centered primarily in the Delaware Basin.

Like Diamondback Energy, Devon is awash in free cash flow thanks to persistently high global oil prices. As a result, it's been lavishing that cash on shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks.

In Devon's case, it generated free cash flow of $1.3 billion for the 12 months ended December 31, 2022 – and that was after paying out $448 million in dividends.

Keep in mind that the energy business is punishingly cyclical. The good times for energy stocks won't last forever. And Devon's 2023 price chart is certainly a reminder of that.

Shares have lost about a quarter of their value so far this year, hurt by sliding oil prices and concerns about the firm's ability to keep funding its generous variable dividends going forward.

That said, Wall Street remains bullish on the name, assigning it a consensus recommendation of Buy – albeit with mixed conviction. Of the 30 analysts covering DVN tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 12 rate it at Strong Buy, four say Buy, 13 have it at Hold and one calls it a Sell.

With an average target price of $67.70, the Street gives DVN stock implied price upside of almost 50% in the next 12 months or so.

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4/5

Coterra Energy

Market value: $17.8 billion
Dividend yield: 10.7%
Analysts' consensus recommendation: Hold

Shares in Coterra Energy (CTRA (opens in new tab)) are lagging the broader market so far in 2023, hurt by sliding energy prices and their potential impact on future disbursements of variable dividends.

Heck, Coterra said it plans to favor share repurchases over variable dividends in 2023, so don't be surprised to see its yield slip in the future. The company expects to generate $1.9 billion in free cash flow this year. Last year, it generated levered free cash flow of $2.8 billion, and that was after paying out almost $2 billion in dividends.

No wonder analysts don't expect CTRA stock to revert to its market-beating ways anytime soon.

Of the 28 analysts covering the independent oil and gas firm tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, five rate it at Strong Buy, two say Buy, 20 have it at Hold and one calls it a Strong Sell. That works out to a consensus recommendation of Hold.

For what it's worth, the Street's average price target tells another story entirely, however. At $29.75, analysts give CTRA implied price upside of about 30% in the next 12 months.

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5/5

Pioneer Natural Resources

Market value: $43.2 billion
Dividend yield: 14.7%
Analysts' consensus recommendation: Buy

No stock in the S&P 500 has a higher dividend yield than independent oil and gas company Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD (opens in new tab)).

Unfortunately, that high yield is partly a function of PXD stock having lost about a fifth of its value so far in 2023. The usual suspect of sliding energy prices impact on future variable dividend payments is to blame.

Just have a look at some boilerplate text from PXD's fourth-quarter earnings release:

"Any future variable dividends, if declared and paid, will by their nature fluctuate based on the company’s free cash flow, which will depend on a number of factors beyond the company’s control, including commodity prices."

For now, at least, the dividends keep coming. For the first quarter of 2023, PXD declared a quarterly base-plus-variable dividend of $5.58 per share, consisting of a $1.10 base dividend and $4.48 variable dividend.

Beyond the income component of PXD, Wall Street is bullish on its potential to beat the broader market this year. Analysts' consensus recommendation stands at Buy, and their average price target gives PXD implied price upside of more than 40% in the next 12 months or so.

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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 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.