Dividend investing is popular again. Investors have taken to heart Jeremy Siegel‘s studies, which show that higher-paying stocks tend to offer greater returns over time than low- or no-yield stocks.

The highest-paying dividend stocks can be very tantalizing. As long as a stock yielding 15% doesn’t lose value, you’ll make 15% in one year! In more cases than not, however, an astronomical yield is a bad sign for a stock. Since dividend yields and stock prices move in opposite directions, a high yield usually means investors have begun to worry about the business and driven down its stock price.

However, certain types of companies, such as REITs have to pay out most of their income as dividends, so their yields will be higher than “normal.” But dividends aren’t guaranteed; you need to make sure a business is generating enough cash to pay its dividend, or your investment could be disastrous.

I ran a screen for the highest-paying dividend stocks. The only limitation I’ve set this time is that the stocks must have a market cap greater than $400 million and must be a corporation, so no REITs or MLPs. I’ve also excluded stocks for which a special dividend heavily influenced the yield.

Here are the top 25 highest-yielding stocks the screen produced:

Source: S&P CapitalIQ.

These stocks are a good place to start your …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance