With the S&P 500 off about 15% so far this year and a lot of high-flying growth stocks brought even lower, much lower, in this down market, it can be easy to feel down in the dumps about your pounded portfolio.
But there also are things you can do with your investment dollars to provide some solace, and it doesn't involve trying to decipher with prescience which former high-achiever will only punish you if you hang around or jump in now.
You can instead pick some slow but steady performers that will comfort you each month with dividends, that flow of passive income that can ease some of the pain while delivering some gain. There are several real estate investment trusts (REITs) among those who pay monthly instead of quarterly, and four worth pointing out here are Agree Realty (ADC -0.94%), Realty Income (O -0.71%), Gladstone Commercial (GOOD -0.61%) and S.L. Green Realty (SLG -2.95%).
The chart below shows the yields of each of these stocks since 2003, when Gladstone Commercial went public (the others did in the 90s). The big spikes are, of course, from big market declines, when share prices fall and yields soar for companies like these that keep the payouts flowing.
O Dividend Yield data by YCharts.
Agree Realty
Agree Realty is one of two retail REITs on this list and at this writing is yielding about 4.1% that's been raised by a total of 6.5% in the past three years. Agree has a portfolio of about 1,500 properties across the country and since going public in 1994 has produced a compound average annual return of 12.5%.
Agree is coming off a record year for investment in its portfolio and plans to keep growing that income stream, adding $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion in new properties to the $1.4 billion it spent buying 290 net-leased sites in 2021.
Gladstone Commercial
Gladstone Commercial owns a mix of net-leased industrial and office properties -- 131 of them in 27 states -- and likes to point out that it hasn't cut or suspended a dividend since its IPO in 2003. This McLean, Virginia-based operation is providing a very nice yield of 7.7%.
Like all REITs, Gladstone Commercial is obliged to pay out in dividends at least 90% of its taxable income, and with a payout ratio of about 80% based on 2022 cashflow estimates, that shouldn't be a problem going forward.
S.L. Green Realty
S.L. Green Realty is all about New York, growing itself into Manhattan's biggest office landlord since going public in 1997. As of the first quarter of 2022, S.L. Green had a stake in 72 buildings totaling nearly 35 million square feet, including some of the prominent addresses in the Big Apple, such as the 1,400-foot-tall One Vanderbilt Avenue that officially opened in September 2020.
That was in the height of the pandemic, of course, and return-to-the-office issues are still blowing headwinds at office REITs, S.L. Green is no exception. But in the meantime, the company has managed to raise its monthly dividend by about 22% over the past three years and is currently yielding a quite respectable 5.85% at a share price of about $64 and a monthly dividend of $0.3108.
That and a payout ratio of about 52% based on 2022 estimated earnings lends confidence to investors who might want to stake a claim in a rebound in Manhattan office space.
Realty Income
Self-dubbed "The Monthly Dividend Company," Realty Income is a poster child for this niche, but it's definitely a grownup, with more than 50 years of consecutive monthly payouts and 98 straight quarters of dividend increases.
That's from a portfolio that now contains about 11,300 properties in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and it's growing, with $1.6 billion in investments reported in just this past quarter alone as the San Diego-based company pursues what its CEO just called " a healthy pipeline of opportunities globally."
Realty Income at this writing has a yield of about 4.3% as it also builds on its record as a Dividend Aristocrat, a member of that exclusive club of S&P 500 members who have raised their payouts for at least 25 straight years.
Image source: Getty Images.
Take a teaspoon of income and log on in the morning
There are a dozen or more stocks that at pretty much any time pay monthly dividends at a higher yield than the companies listed above, but they're primarily lenders themselves or investors in loans, such as mortgage REITs, that can be quite sensitive to interest hikes.
Certainly, there's money to be made with those, too, but I chose to go here with companies that own income-producing real estate, which includes that time-tested strategy for combating inflation that REITs share with other real estate companies: raising the rent themselves.
If this ongoing correction is giving you sleepless nights, you mt want to include some golden fleece among those sheep you're counting while waiting for the bulls to return. Plus, getting paid monthly might help ease the pain of being otherwise sheared.
