Market crashes happen, and they tend to drag down the best stocks along with the rest of the market. It's impossible to predict the timing and severity of the next downturn, but it's easy to imagine one occurring in the near term.
The omicron variant keeps threatening to pinch the global economy. If the latest variant of concern quickly fizzles out, rising inflation could prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
These three companies make reliable dividend payments in good times and bad. Their stocks are up near 52-week highs at the moment, but an overall market downturn could push them down to highly attractive prices. Here's why you want to add them to your watchlist.
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1. Abbott Laboratories
Abbott Laboratories (ABT -0.65%) shares have gained around 26% in 2021. At recent prices, the stock offers an anemic 1.4% dividend yield.
Patient investors who've held shares of this Dividend Aristocrat have seen their quarterly payments rise 77% over the past five years. Despite the big payout bumps, Abbott only needed around 33% of the free cash flow its operations generated over the past year to make dividend payments. That means the company shouldn't have any trouble raising the payout in line with earnings growth in the foreseeable future.
Abbott is a healthcare conglomerate that makes most of its money selling medical devices and diagnostics. Its medical-device segment is under some pressure due to COVID-19 because it takes a lot of doctor visits before patients can receive a new pacemaker or a replacement heart valve. Despite pandemic pressure, medical-device segment sales during the first nine months of 2021 rose 24.5% year over year to $10.6 billion.
Diagnostics sales in the first nine months of 2021 soared a whopping 73% year over year to $11.2 billion. Soaring demand for COVID-19 tests isn't good news for the medical-device segment, but improved diagnostics sales more than make up the difference.
It's been over 50 years since Abbott went a whole year without raising its dividend payout. Considering the company's well-diversified operation, investors can reasonably expect their payouts to keep rising for another decade or two.
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2. AbbVie
The second half of 2021 has been disastrous for most drugmaker stocks, but not AbbVie (ABBV -1.03%). Shares of the pharmaceutical giant are up more than 22% this year. Since spinning off from Abbott Laboratories in 2013, the stock has risen around 271%, but that's not the whole story. Once you factor in steadily rising dividend payments, investors who held on to their shares have already received a 438% total return since the beginning of 2013.
Over the past eight years, AbbVie's dividend has risen a whopping 253%, and at recent prices, the stock offers a tempting 4.3% yield. Despite the rapid raises, the company needed just 42% of free cash flow generated over the past year to meet its rapidly rising dividend obligation.
AbbVie has offered an above-average dividend since its inception because investors are rightfully nervous about the company's ability to keep raising it in the long run. This company's largest source of revenue, Humira, is also the world's top-selling drug, with sales that rose 5.6% year over year in the third quarter up to an annualized $21.7 billion.
Humira lost market exclusivity in the EU in 2018, and now 85% of its sales come from the U.S. market. In about a year, biosimilar versions of Humira that are already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are expected to finally begin hammering Humira sales into the dirt.
A few years ago, Humira's demise would have been disastrous for AbbVie, but the company's done an outstanding job at using Humira cash flows to license, acquire, and develop new blockbuster drugs that will more than offset the losses. Third-quarter sales of Rinvoq, a once-daily pill for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis that AbbVie launched in 2019, more than doubled year over year to an annualized $1.8 billion. Sales of Skyrizi, a psoriasis drug also launched in 2019, soared 83.3% year over year to an annualized $3.2 billion.
The Botox brand of injectable botulinum toxin is far more resilient to the loss of exclusivity issues facing Humira because it isn't exactly exclusive in the first place. Cosmetic Botox is more popular than ever, with third-quarter sales that soared 39% year over year to an annualized $2.2 billion. Therapeutic Botox sales rose 23% year over year to an annualized $2.6 billion.
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3. Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ -0.69%) shares haven't performed as well as Abbott's or AbbVie's this year. Slow-growing sales of consumer-health products like Q-tips and Band-Aids have finally pushed the company to spin off its consumer-health segment into a new company.
You probably want to wait for the dips with Johnson & Johnson because at recent prices, the stock offers an uninspiring 2.5% yield. Once the company splits in two, shareholders will receive two quarterly payouts that should add up to the same amount they were receiving before the spin-off, or even more.
Johnson & Johnson has raised its dividend every year for 60 straight years. Over the past five years, the payout has risen by 32.5%, which isn't amazing but more than enough to outpace inflation.
While I'm not expecting a great deal of growth from the new consumer-health business, Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical division is firing on all cylinders. While the company's COVID-19 vaccine gets the most attention, it's not a very important part of the company's overall pharmaceutical business.
Johnson & Johnson's total pharmaceutical sales in the third quarter rose 13.8% year over year. A new psoriasis drug called Tremfya and a cancer therapy called Darzalex provided most of the growth. With the company's new products leading the way, investors can look forward to a steadily growing dividend payout for many years to come.
