At any given time, the market's very best dividend stocks to buy are usually shares of enduring companies worth owning all the time. Every now and then, though, even a "forever" dividend payer is clearly entering a period of unprecedented opportunity, when it might not only dramatically grow its per-share payout, but also dish out some serious capital gains.
To this end, here's a closer look at three such names income investors might want to buy and hold for the next 10 years. That doesn't mean they won't do well beyond that point. The coming decade, though, could be -- and should be -- something special.
Brookfield Asset Management
Just as the name suggests, Brookfield Asset Management (BAM 0.64%) is an investment manager. This business is well suited for supporting reliable dividend payments, too. These companies charge a quarterly fee not based on their stock-picking performance, but simply for keeping their clients' money invested.
NYSE: BAM
Key Data Points
Even among investment management outfits, however, Brookfield is something of a standout for specializing in high-demand industries.
It manages Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Renewable Partners, and Brookfield Business Partners (each is a pass-through limited partnership with a corporate counterpart that pays dividends), putting it in very relevant businesses right now and for the foreseeable future. For instance, Brookfield Infrastructure owns cellphone towers and railroad assets, while Brookfield Renewable Partners holds a bunch of wind, solar, and hydro power-generation facilities, serving the public as well as directly serving enterprises like Alphabet's Google and Microsoft.
Their need for energy, of course, is soaring due to both companies' growing number of artificial intelligence data centers at the same time the world is weaning itself from fossil fuels and transitioning to cleaner, environmentally friendly renewables, an industry that Roots Analysis expects to grow an average of more than 14% per year through 2035.
In this vein, Brookfield Asset Management itself is comfortable enough with its opportunity to publicly say it's targeting revenue growth of between 15% and 20%, as well as to publicly commit to a dividend payout ratio of about 90% of its earnings.
You'd be plugging in while this stock's forward-looking dividend yield stands at roughly 4.3%.
Equinix
At just over 2%, Equinix's (EQIX +1.74%) forward-looking dividend yield isn't nearly as impressive as Brookfield's. Just look 10 years into the future. While past performance is no guarantee of future results, this company's average annualized dividend growth of 11% over the course of the past 10 years is a reasonably good indication of what's possible for the next 10. That more than makes the modest yield right now worth it.
But what's driving this sort of per-share payout growth? Equinix is in the cloud computing and data center business, including the artificial intelligence slice of this market. It owns and operates more than 280 data centers all over the world, serving a range of customers such as Air Canada, Coca-Cola European Partners, and Zoom. The company did $9.2 billion worth of business last year, up 6% on a constant-currency basis.
Image source: Getty Images.
That's admittedly not much growth. But don't misread the number. Like most other companies in the data center business, Equinix is figuring out how to optimize its capacity so it can best serve this rapidly growing business. It's guiding for top-line growth of about 10% this fiscal year, and per-share adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) growth of about the same. What's AFFO? That's a real estate investment trust's (REIT's) equivalent to per-share operating earnings.
It's an unusual business structure for a technology company, but not necessarily unusual for a technology business like this one, where customers make recurring monthly payments for ongoing access to a platform. That's because REITs are able to pass along their profits to shareholders without first being taxed at the corporate level. They're required to pass the bulk of their profits along to shareholders, in fact.
Constellation Energy
Finally, add Constellation Energy (CEG +1.50%) to your list of dividend stocks to buy and hold for the next 10 years.
It's a power utility company, and they are typically great dividend payers. After all, consumers may opt for a staycation rather than a vacation, or postpone the purchase of a new automobile. They do whatever it takes to keep the light on, though.
That's not what makes Constellation such a great dividend investment here and now, however, compared to alternative utility stocks with much longer-established pedigrees (Constellation Energy has only existed as a stand-alone company since being spun off from Exelon back in 2022, although Exelon was an outstanding dividend stock up until that point).
NASDAQ: CEG
Key Data Points
Rather, what makes this ticker a fantastic income prospect is that it's arguably better positioned than any other name in the business to meet the nation's immediate need for electricity, being driven by the aforementioned proliferation of artificial intelligence data centers. While we'll need help from all energy sources, including renewables, it's nuclear power that's the most proven and the most readily available now and for the foreseeable future. Goldman Sachs expects total worldwide nuclear power generation to grow by more than 50% through 2050, for perspective.
This is where Constellation shines. With 21 nuclear reactors producing more than 80% of its total output, this company creates more nuclear power than the rest of the nation's utility companies combined.
It's not just a matter of flipping a switch, to be clear. Building new nuclear power plants -- or even restarting idle ones -- requires cutting through a lot of red tape. But Constellation Energy has been quietly cutting through it for a while now, including efforts to accelerate the restart of one of Three Mile Island's mothballed reactors by next year.
Constellation's current forward-looking divided yield is an oddly low 0.6%, mostly because investors have poured into the stock to latch onto its growth potential. It wouldn't be wrong to wait for a pullback before stepping in. Just don't get too stingy. This dividend-paying utility stock could perform very much like a growth stock for the next several years.
