Last month, the stock market had crashed due to the impact of COVID-19. Since then, the stock market has started its recovery when news of government from different countries started to provide stimulus budget to revive the economy. During the crisis, I have picked up OCBC Bank, Singtel, US Manulife REIT and added more of CapitaMall Trust when their stock prices fell. If you didn’t know, I am a dividend investor. Thus, I usually look out for stocks with attractive dividend yield that provides me with endless dividends many years ahead. The stock market crash has provided me with such an opportunity.
I will run the Stocks Café stock screener every month which gives me a list of stocks that fulfill my dividend criteria. I fall into the medium risk type of investor and thus I never looked at stocks with dividend yield more than 10%. Below are the criteria that I used to identify dividend stocks.
- Current Yield (%) >= 5 and <= 10
- Price / Earnings <=20
- Price / Book <= 3
- Market Capitalization >= 1B
Below are the top dividend yielding stocks as of 10th April 2020. I believe you will see some REITs that you have been eyeing for before the stock market had crashed. Even though the stock prices have started the recovery, the current yield is still attractive.
| Name | Current Yield % | P/E | P/B | Market Cap |
| Mapletree NAC Trust | 9.981 | 4.44 | 0.611 | 2.8B |
| OUE Commercial REIT | 8.711 | 13.38 | 0.618 | 2B |
| Ascendas-iTrust | 8.644 | 5.29 | 1.084 | 1.4B |
| DBS | 7.837 | 7.65 | 0.998 | 48.7B |
| Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust | 7.568 | 9.05 | 0.974 | 2.1B |
| CapitaRetail China Trust | 7.557 | 8.46 | 0.845 | 1.6B |
| Frasers Commercial Trust | 7.385 | 7.91 | 0.794 | 1.2B |
| Suntec REIT | 7.37 | 9.21 | 0.605 | 3.6B |
| CapitaMall Trust | 7.125 | 8.89 | 0.798 | 6.2B |
| Ascendas REIT | 7.038 | 17.7 | 1.29 | 10.1B |
| Yanlord Land | 6.733 | 2.97 | 0.358 | 2B |
| ComfortDelgro | 6.527 | 12.25 | 1.252 | 3.2B |
| Frasers Centrepoint Trust | 6.275 | 9.41 | 0.87 | 2.2B |
| UOB | 6.197 | 7.74 | 0.849 | 33.4B |
| SIA Engineering | 6.18 | 10.44 | 1.29 | 2B |
| CapitaCommercial Trust | 6.082 | 12.77 | 0.784 | 5.6B |
| SPH REIT | 6.081 | 11.84 | 0.786 | 2.1B |
| TCIL HK$ | 6.044 | 17.2 | 0.329 | 3.7B |
| SATS | 5.938 | 15.9 | 2.211 | 3.6B |
| OCBC Bank | 5.922 | 7.91 | 0.863 | 39.4B |
| Jardine Cycle & Carriage | 5.833 | 6.71 | 0.875 | 8.1B |
| Mapletree Commercial Trust | 5.595 | 5.45 | 0.955 | 5.6B |
| Yangzijiang Ship Building | 5.435 | 5.9 | 0.601 | 3.6B |
| Guocoland | 5.385 | 5.72 | 0.374 | 1.4B |
| Olam International | 5.208 | 9.01 | 0.852 | 4.6B |
| SPH | 5.195 | 12.19 | 0.72 | 2.5B |
| Frasers Property | 5.128 | 7.32 | 0.453 | 3.4B |
| Lonza | 5.042 | 5.72 | 0.659 | 5.9B |
Last, I just want to mention again that the above list is for reference only and we should do our homework before buying into the stock simply for the dividend yield.
Any idea of dividend payout and who’s solid enough not to cut those dividends down the line, though?
Hi Roger, I believe most REITs will cut dividends. You can look at those that CD before the COVID-19 outbreak such as OCBC Bank.
Be aware that the REITS and companies may cut dividends in the upcoming quarters, so the yield percentage based on past payouts will give a wrong impression of future payouts. Case in point SPH REIT.
Hi, you are right. We must be prepared REITs and companies will cut dividends in the upcoming quarters. We should pick only cash rich companies with good cash flow that can help them tide over the current crisis. The dividend yield will recover when the economy recovers.