7 Cheap Financial Stocks Paying Cold, Hard Cash

Despite the broad market being up more than 15% over the past six months, there are still many concerns in investors' minds. A potential bubble in emerging markets, recent protests abroad, and the possibility of a slowdown in the U.S. market all combine to make investors jittery.

The silver lining though is that many quality stocks are still trading on the cheap and have plenty of cash to dish out to shareholders, and this could mean great opportunities for savvy investors.

I ran a screen for financial companies paying dividends above 2%, that are trading for P/Es below 17, and that have CAPS ratings of at least four stars as rated by our 170,000-strong investing community. I've sorted them in order of their dividend yield. Below are seven stocks that fit that exact criteria:

Source: CAPS data as of Jan. 31.

Granted, there are probably good reasons why some of these stocks are trading so cheaply. The majority of these companies are real estate investment trusts, and although they've performed well in the last year, many of them are dependent on cheap interest rates to continue posting big profits. In addition, none have long track records of paying dividends, so you've got to make sure do your own due diligence to make sure these dividends won't get cut or suspended right after you decide to make an investment.

Nonetheless, these stocks are paying absurdly high dividends, and if income is what you're looking for, this could be a great place to start.

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