The 5 Best BDC Stocks to Buy Now

The best BDC stocks are a small but sky-high-yielding industry that effectively act as private equity for the common investor.

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Wall Street received a painful reminder last year that the stock market isn't a free-money machine. Stocks don't always march higher, and the risk of declines, if perhaps only temporary, are very real. Dividends, however, allow you to realize consistent cash returns and avoid the need to sell at inopportune times – and few areas of the market produce higher dividends than the best BDC stocks.

BDCs, or business development companies, are like private equity funds for the common man, though they have some important differences. Whereas private equity funds tend to be opaque, have long lockup periods and are restricted to high-net-worth and institutional investors, BDCs are publicly traded on the stock market, available to anyone with a brokerage account and are completely transparent.

BDCs make debt and equity investments primarily in "middle market" companies that are generally a little too big for bank financing but not quite big enough to go public via an initial public offering (IPO). They invest in the proverbial Main Street … or at least, this is as close to Main Street as Wall Street gets.

Like their cousins, real estate investment trusts (REITs), BDCs were created by Congress to encourage investment in the real economy, and both benefit from preferential tax treatment, paying no income tax at the corporate level so long as they pay out at least 90% of their net income as dividends.

This is why BDCs and REITs generally are some of the best dividend stocks for high yields. They're legally mandated to pay out nearly every red cent, and the absence of taxes makes more cash available to pay.

Disclaimer

Data is as of October 30. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent payout and dividing by the share price.  

Charles Lewis Sizemore, CFA
Contributing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Charles Lewis Sizemore, CFA is the Chief Investment Officer of Sizemore Capital Management LLC, a registered investment advisor based in Dallas, Texas, where he specializes in dividend-focused portfolios and in building alternative allocations with minimal correlation to the stock market.