If you're more nervous than usual about buying stocks these days you're not alone. From July 16 through Aug. 2, the benchmark S&P 500 index fell about 5.7% from its all-time high.
The recent stock market drop is still a few points shy of an official market correction, but it's enough to make everyday investors think twice before purchasing risky growth stocks.
If fear of a market correction has you biting your fingernails, consider these two dividend payers from the healthcare sector. They offer yields above 3% at recent prices. Plus, you get to keep the payments they deliver every quarter even if an unpredictable stock market blows past correction territory and completely crashes.
1. Bristol Myers Squibb
In 2022, the average American racked up $13,493 in medical expenses which was 4.1% more than the previous year. Prescription drug spending led the charge by growing 8.4% year over year to $405.9 billion.
NYSE: BMY
Key Data Points
While $405.9 billion is a large sum, it was less than 10% of 2022's overall $4.5 trillion national health expenditure. This suggests spending on prescription drugs, including those marketed by Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY +0.83%), has a lot more room to grow.
Bristol Myers Squibb has been making quarterly dividend payments for over 90 years, and the last time it reduced its payout was in 1999. At recent prices, the stock offers a 4.9% dividend yield.
Despite a steadily rising dividend payout, shares of this pharmaceutical giant have been beaten down because investors are concerned about declining sales of its third largest revenue stream, Revlimid. The multiple myeloma treatment has already lost patent-protected market exclusivity in the U.S. and generic competition is expected to hammer sales from an annualized $5.4 billion in the second quarter to nearly nothing within a few years.
Patient investors want to scoop up shares of Bristol Myers Squibb now and hold them for a long time because the market doesn't fully appreciate the slew of new treatments emerging from this company's development pipeline. For example, KarXT is an experimental schizophrenia drug with a big advantage over the therapies it could compete with.
Existing antipsychotics are famous for severe side effects, such as weight gain and sleepiness, that lead to poor compliance. Unlike the drugs it could compete against, KarXT doesn't act on dopamine receptors. Psychiatrists clamoring for an improvement could drive annual sales past $10 billion at its peak.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce an approval decision regarding KarXT on or before Sept. 26. Adding some shares of Bristol Myers Squibb to a diversified portfolio now and holding them over the long run looks like a great way to pump up your passive income stream.
2. AbbVie
AbbVie (ABBV +0.16%) is another big drugmaker with an impressive dividend track record that you can buy now and hold through unpredictable market corrections. The company raised its dividend payout by 269% over the past 10 years. If we include Abbott Laboratories, the conglomerate it spun off from in 2013, its dividend payment history goes back over a century.
NYSE: ABBV
Key Data Points
At recent prices, AbbVie offers an above-average 3.3% dividend yield. Payout growth has slowed recently in response to the loss of patent-protected market exclusivity for Humira, an anti-inflammatory injection that used to be the world's top-selling drug. In the first half of 2024, though, biosimilar competition knocked Humira sales about 33% lower year over year to $5.1 billion.
Investors want to scoop up AbbVie shares because it has a handful of more recently launched drugs that can more than offset Humira's losses. For example, Skyrizi is an injection for psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn's disease that grew sales by a whopping 46% to reach $4.7 billion in the first half of 2024.
In addition to Skyrizi, Rinvoq is an arthritis drug that's pushing AbbVie's needle forward, with first-half sales that soared 57% year over year to $2.5 billion. In 2027, management expects combined sales from Skyrizi and Rinvoq to exceed $27 billion. With contributions from these two drugs, and several more, AbbVie could more than triple its dividend payout again in the decade ahead.
