Dividend paying stocks are a staple in market-beating investment portfolios, but dividend investors don't have very many options when it comes to investing in the biotechnology sector. Out of the largest biotechnology stocks, only Amgen (AMGN -0.19%) has made the decision to reward investors with dividend payments.
That's likely frustrating to dividend investors. After all, biotech stocks like Gilead Sciences (GILD 0.07%) generate billions of dollars in sales from key drugs and boast enviable cash-flow boosting margins that would seem to support sending at least some of their profit back to shareholders. However, there are valid reasons that these companies choose to stockpile cash rather than pay a dividend, so we put the question of why biotech stocks don't pay dividends to Motley Fool health care analyst Michael Douglass and health care contributor Todd Campbell. Watch the following video to learn what they think are the real reasons behind biotechnology's stingy dividend payout policy.
