Why doesn t Warren Buffett pay dividends?
While Berkshire Hathaway itself does not pay a dividend because it prefers to reinvest all of its earnings for growth, Warren Buffett has certainly not been shy about owning shares of dividend-paying stocks. Over half of Berkshire's holdings pay a dividend, and several of them have yields near 4% or higher.
Why Doesn't Berkshire Hathaway Pay its Shareholders a Dividend? Company founder and CEO Warren Buffett believes profits can generate better shareholder value spent in other ways. He frequently shares these views during Berkshire's annual meetings.
In 2024, Buffett's company is set to collect around $6 billion in dividend income (including preferred dividends). Interestingly enough, $4.65 billion of this total will be raked in from just six core holdings.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B/BRK-A)
Despite being a large, mature, and stable blue-chip company, Berkshire has never paid its shareholders a dividend. Not even a one-time special dividend.
Berkshire currently owns 400 million shares of Coca-Cola. This means that on an annualized basis, Warren Buffett's company generates $736 million in dividend income from the beverage giant. That is a huge passive income stream that likely explains why Buffett isn't exiting the position.
In addition to Visa, Warren Buffett also enjoys dividends from Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX), Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) and American Express Company (NYSE:AXP). In its October 2023 investor letter, Lakehouse Capital stated the following regarding Visa Inc.
Many wise investors believe that dividends are the key to long-term investing success. Warren Buffett certainly fits into that category. He doesn't make big bets on which way a stock will move over the next quarter or even the next year. Instead, he focuses on quality companies sustaining dividends.
The latest round of 13Fs, which features trading activity for the December-ended quarter, detailed a handful of moves made by successful billionaire investors in ultra-high-yield dividend stocks. I'm talking about publicly traded companies whose yield is at least four times higher than the benchmark S&P 500.
Companies that pay a regular dividend to their shareholders tend to be recurringly profitable, time-tested, and are capable of providing transparent long-term growth outlooks. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.
The 93-year-old has received $100,000 a year since 1980 — a fraction of the $18 million average pay of S&P 500 CEOs in 2021. Buffett doesn't earn much from other sources either.
What is the highest paid dividend stocks?
- Verizon Communications VZ.
- Johnson & Johnson JNJ.
- Philip Morris International PM.
- Altria Group MO.
- Comcast CMCSA.
- Medtronic MDT.
- Pioneer Natural Resources PXD.
- Duke Energy DUK.
Company | Dividend Yield |
---|---|
Franklin BSP Realty Trust Inc. (FBRT) | 11.60% |
Angel Oak Mortgage REIT Inc (AOMR) | 11.58% |
Altria Group Inc. (MO) | 9.79% |
Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc. (WASH) | 9.16% |
- What dividends and REITs are.
- ARMOUR Residential REIT – 20.7%
- Orchid Island Capital – 17.8%
- AGNC Investment – 14.8%
- Oxford Square Capital – 13.7%
- Ellington Residential Mortgage REIT – 13.2%
- SLR Investment – 11.5%
- PennantPark Floating Rate Capital – 10%
Warren Buffett's holding company, Berkshire, has been one of Apple's biggest backers. It owns a 5.9% stake, ranking behind only Vanguard Group, which holds 8.1% through its many mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, according to FactSet.
Does Tesla pay a dividend? Does it plan to? Tesla has never declared dividends on our common stock. We intend on retaining all future earnings to finance future growth and therefore, do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future.
In 1996, GEICO became a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, headed by Warren Buffett, one of the country's most successful investors.
Apple is Berkshire's largest public stock holding by far. Berkshire's $155 billion Apple stake is roughly four times larger than its second-largest holding. Buffett first bought Apple shares in the first quarter of 2016, and Apple's stock price is up more than 500% since the beginning of 2016.
Despite selling some shares of Apple in the fourth quarter of 2023, the tech giant still holds the top spot in Berkshire's portfolio. Apple is such a massive holding that Buffett has referred to it as Berkshire Hathaway's "third-largest business" after its wholly-owned insurance and railroad businesses.
Company | Ticker | Years of dividend growth |
---|---|---|
Emerson Electric | EMR | 67 |
Genuine Parts | GPC | 67 |
Procter & Gamble | PG | 68 |
Dover | DOV | 68 |
Amazon does not pay dividends, unlike other large tech companies such as Microsoft, Intel, and IBM. The company has a growth-focused business model, which relies on reinvesting profits into expanding the business.
What stock pays dividends monthly?
Stock | Market Capitalization | 12-month Trailing Dividend Yield |
---|---|---|
Modiv Industrial Inc. (MDV) | $112 million | 7.7% |
LTC Properties Inc. (LTC) | $1.3 billion | 7.2% |
Realty Income Corp. (O) | $44 billion | 6.4% |
PermRock Royalty Trust (PRT) | $53 million | 10.3% |
Companies that offer dividends provide investors with a regular income as the stock price moves up and down in the market. Companies that don't offer dividends are typically reinvesting revenues into the growth of the company itself, which can eventually lead to greater increases in share price and value for investors.
Once you have $1 million in assets, you can look seriously at living entirely off the returns of a portfolio. After all, the S&P 500 alone averages 10% returns per year. Setting aside taxes and down-year investment portfolio management, a $1 million index fund could provide $100,000 annually.
Stocks in the S&P 500 index currently yield about 1.5% on aggregate. That means, if you have $1 million invested in a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund that tracks the index, you could expect annual dividend income of about $15,000.
Berkshire Hathaway's substantial ownership stake in Apple translates into just shy of $900 million a year in dividends.
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