When evaluating dividend stocks, company debt should be an important part of your analysis. Because debt holders are always paid before shareholder dividends, high debt levels can threaten a company’s dividend yield. Because of this, companies with less debt generally pay more sustainable dividend yields.
We ran a screen on low debt stocks that pay dividend yields above 4% for those that have seen significant net insider buying over the last six months.
Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned below. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.
We also created a price-weighted index of the stocks mentioned below, and monitored the performance of the list relative to the S&P 500 index over the last month. To access a complete analysis of this list's recent performance, click here.
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Do you think these stocks pay reliable dividends? Use this list as a starting-off point for your own analysis.
List sorted by dividend yield.
1. USA Mobility, Inc. (USMO): Provides wireless communications solutions to the healthcare, government, enterprise, and emergency response sectors in the United States. Market cap of $334.15M. Dividend yield at 6.61%, payout ratio at 38.53%. Long-term debt to equity at 0.11. Net insider shares purchased over the last six months at 6.74K, which is 0.03% of the company's 19.96M share float. The stock is a short squeeze candidate, with a short float at 8.71% (equivalent to 9.41 days of average volume). The stock has gained 10.36% over the last year.
2. Commercial National Financial Corp. (CNAF): Operates as a holding company for the Commercial Bank & Trust of PA that provides various commercial banking and trust services primarily in Pennsylvania. Market cap of $58.34M. Dividend yield at 5.10%, payout ratio at 45.68%. Long-term debt to equity at 0. Net insider shares purchased over the last six months at 3.53K, which is 0.16% of the company's 2.22M share float. Exhibiting strong upside momentum--currently trading 7.98% above its SMA20, 11.33% above its SMA50, and 15.85% above its SMA200. The stock has gained 27.98% over the last year.
3. Teche Holding Company (TSH): Operates as the holding company for Teche Federal Bank that offers various financial services in Louisiana, the United States. Market cap of $66.76M. Dividend yield at 4.47%, payout ratio at 42.69%. Long-term debt to equity at 0. Net insider shares purchased over the last six months at 8.86K, which is 0.59% of the company's 1.51M share float. The stock has gained 8.55% over the last year.
*Insider data sourced from Yahoo! Finance, all other data sourced from Finviz.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
