Leading Dividend-Paying Stocks of 2022

In the stock market, money can be made not only actively by buying or selling stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments but also, passively by holding stocks. As a rule, these earnings consist of dividends paid out by companies as a distribution of corporate profits to shareholders. Companies may have different policies for dividend payments: some pay them monthly (which is a rare case), while others pay out dividends once every quarter, once every six months, or once a year. Some companies do not pay any dividends at all. This article will review companies that paid out the largest dividends in 2022 – expressed in money and percent of the dividend yield.

How to choose the top dividend stocks

Considering that most people are interested in the profit made in real money, we will sort stocks by the sum of dividends paid in 2022 (at the moment the article was written). Point two will be the dividend yield expressed in percent and calculated as follows:

(Dividends paid per stock / current stock price) x 100

Here is an example: if the current stock price is 10 USD, and the company paid 2 USD of dividends over the calculation period, the dividend yield will amount to 20%. As a result, an investor will receive 200 USD for every 100 stocks in the portfolio.

Out of the stocks traded on stock exchanges, we have chosen stocks by several selection criteria:

1. The companies are traded on the NYSE or NASDAQ
2. The companies are registered in the US
3. Their market capitalisation is more than 10 billion USD
4. The companies are not funds or ETFs
5. The dividend yield is more than 3% per share
6. The dividends paid over all the calculation periods of 2022 are no less than 1 USD

Where to find the dividend payment schedule

The dividend payment schedule can be found on the company's website or open sources on the Internet. Popular screeners have special settings that allow for sorting out companies that paid dividends over a certain calculation period by parameters chosen by the client. One example is finviz.com. Financial reports of companies contain this information too, but beginners might find this difficult to locate.

It is marked on charts in the terminal, indicating when dividends were paid and how much per stock.

Top dividend stocks 2022

1. Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGEN)

The market capitalisation of the company is 126.50 billion USD. The company was founded in 1980; and its head office is in Thousand Oaks, California. The company works in healthcare: it researches, develops, and produces drugs for the therapy of a wide range of conditions. It has partnerships with other companies worldwide.

Dividend payments in 2022:

08.03.2022 - 1.94 USD, dividend yield 3.40%.
08.06.2022 - 1.94 USD, dividend yield 3.19%.
17.08.2022 - 1.94 USD, dividend yield 3.07%.

2. The AES Corporation (NYSE: AESC)

The market capitalisation of the company is 17.92 billion USD. The company was founded in 1981; its head office is in Arlington, Virginia. The AES Corporation works in the sphere of energy: it produces and sells electric energy throughout the US and overseas.

Dividend payments in 2022:

15.02.2022 - 1.7188 USD, dividend yield 7.53%.
16.05.2022 - 1.7188 USD, dividend yield 8.17%.
15.08.2022 - 1.719 USD, dividend yield 7.13%.

3. International Business Machine Corporation (NYSE: IBM)

The market capitalisation is 113.64 billion USD. The company was registered in 1911; its head office is in Armonk, New York.

Dividend payments in 2022:

10.03.2022 - 1.64 USD, dividend yield 4.76%.
10.06.2022 - 1.65 USD, dividend yield 4.79%.
10.09.2022 - 1.65 USD, dividend yield 4.98%.

4. 3M Company (NYSE: MMM)

The market capitalisation is 67.98 billion USD. The company was founded in 1902; its head office is in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The company's business is diversified into four segments:

1. Transport
2. Electronics
3. Healthcare
4. Consumer sector

Dividend payments in 2022:

12.03.2022 - 1.49 USD, dividend yield 3.83%.
12.06.2022 - 1.49 USD, dividend yield 4.00%.
12.09.2022 - 1.49 USD, dividend yield 4.06%.

5. Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX)

The market capitalisation is 307.18 billion USD. The company was founded in 1879; its head office is in San Ramon, California. It works in energy, exploring, mining, refining, selling, and delivering hydrocarbons. Moreover, the company manages money in insurance, real estate, and the tech sector.

Dividend payments in 2022:

10.03.2022 - 1.42 USD, dividend yield 4.16%.
10.06.2022 - 1.42 USD, dividend yield 3.26%.
12.09.2022 - 1.42 USD, dividend yield 3.60%.

6. PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCGU)

The market capitalisation is 31.8 billion USD. The company was registered in 1905; its head office is in San Francisco, California. The company mines and produces natural gas and electricity for dwellings, commercial and industrial buildings, agricultural objects, and electric plants that work on natural gas.

Dividend payments in 2022:

16.02.2022 - 1.375 USD, dividend yield 5.07%.
16.05.2022 - 1.375 USD, dividend yield 4.88%.
12.08.2022 - 1.375 USD, dividend yield 4.95%

7. Philip Morris (NYSE: PM)

The market capitalisation is 144.85 billion USD. The company was registered in 1987; its head office is in New York, New York. The company produces and sells tobacco products, and also develops other products outside the tobacco/nicotine sphere.

Dividend payments in 2022:

12.04.2022 - 1.25 USD, dividend yield 5.34%.
15.07.2022 - 1.25 USD, dividend yield 4.96%.

Closing thoughts

An investor who wants to make a profit on dividends needs to take into account the following factors:

1. Dividends paid in real money might not cover expenses.
2. The dividend yield depends on the stock price, not on the actual money paid.
3. The profit made on dividends can be called passive revenue or a bonus from holding a certain stock. When making small investments, an investor can hardly count on some serious income. While stocks are in the investor's portfolio, each of them could fluctuate, which means that in certain cases dividends may not cover for the losses incurred due to the decrease in the asset's price.
4. Investors should study taxation rules in their country beforehand to be clear about the sum of taxes they must pay.
5. To receive dividends, an investor must be holding the stock before a dividend cutoff. The cutoff is the date when the list of stockholders is formed, and those who are not on the list do not get dividends paid to them.

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