Key Points
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Investor-favorite Coca-Cola may not be the top prospect in the beverage business right now.
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The tobacco business will eventually die, but that is much further down the road than most people might presume.
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Pipeline company Enbridge has plenty of revenue opportunity ahead, in and out of the oil and gas business.
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A fund or ETF that mirrors the performance of the S&P 500 Index (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is almost always a smart, all-weather growth investment.
There is one exception, however. That is, if you specifically need income. With a trailing dividend yield of only 1.1%, the S&P 500 just doesn’t generate much of it.
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There are still great alternatives, though. Here’s a rundown of three dividend payers with yields that are not only at least three times bigger than the S&P 500’s current yield, but yields based on dividends that have been paid and raised like clockwork for years now.
1. PepsiCo
For most investors, beverage giant Coca-Cola is the go-to choice as an income holding from the consumer goods space. And it’s still a good one to be sure. That’s certainly not been the case for rival PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP) of late, however, which is down 28% from its 2023 peak mostly due to the company’s struggle with inflation.
Both camps have arguably overplayed their hands, however. KO stock is up 50% for the past two years as investors clamored for the safety it offers, dragging its forward-looking dividend yield down to a multiyear low of 2.2%. Conversely, PepsiCo shares’ prolonged weakness has pumped its dividend yield up to 4.2%.
A strong yield alone isn’t necessarily enough reason to purchase a stock, even as high as this one may be. PepsiCo also brings all the rest of what it needs to bring to the table, though, including an impressive dividend pedigree as well as evidence that it’s finally on a turnaround track.
Not only has this beverage (and snack) outfit now raised its per-share dividend for 54 consecutive years, but it’s looking for full-year organic revenue growth of around 3% following Q3’s top-line improvement of 3.1%, accelerating last year’s tepid growth of only 1.7%. It’s evidence that initiatives like its prebiotic cola and protein-enriched snack chips are getting traction.
Just don’t tarry if you’re interested. PEP stock has bounced 12% since reporting its third-quarter numbers in early October. The crowd’s starting to believe in it again.
2. Altria Group
There will come a time when the tobacco business is no longer a tenable industry. Blame/credit successful smoking-cessation efforts, mostly.
That end isn’t on the near-term horizon, however. Although the Center for Disease Control reports more than two-thirds of U.S. smokers say they want to kick the cigarette habit, only a little more than half actually tried to quit in the past year, while less than 10% successfully did so. That leaves 11.6% of a still-growing (albeit slowly) U.S. population that continues smoking. Meanwhile, the use of vaping continues to rise as means of delivering nicotine to craving consumers, offsetting much of the progress made on the tobacco-smoking cessation front.
Enter Altria Group (NYSE: MO), parent to U.S. cigarette company Philip Morris (which makes Marlboro cigarettes), but also vaping brand Njoy and oral nicotine pouch maker Helix Innovations. Although the company’s sold nearly 3% fewer cigarettes through the first three quarters of 2026 than it did through the first nine months of last year, organic revenue is still up more than 3% thanks to a combination of higher prices and growth of its other product lines.
Perhaps most important, per-share earnings of $4.33 through the first three quarters of 2026 are up 5.1% from last year’s comparison, supporting and extending 61 increases in its dividend payment over the course of the past 57 years.
Again, it can’t last indefinitely. It’s likely going to last longer than most people might expect it to, however, making this stock’s forward-looking dividend yield of nearly 5.8% well worth it even without knowing exactly when in the future will be the right time to make your exit. That will become clearer as the time approaches.
3. Enbridge
Last but not least, add oil and gas pipeline owner/operator Enbridge (NYSE: ENB) to your list of high-yielding dividend stocks to buy while you can step into its yield of 5.6%.
Like the tobacco industry, there will come a time when the world just doesn’t need fossil fuels like crude oil and natural gas. Also like the tobacco business, though, that time is well into the distant future. The International Energy Agency’s latest outlook suggests demand for oil will continue rising every year all the way through 2050, from a little more than 100 million barrels per day now to 113 million per day then. There’s plenty of money to be made in the business in the meantime.
And Enbridge is perfectly positioned to turn this demand into reliable dividends regardless of the price of oil or natural gas. That’s because it gets paid a flat fee for the usage of its 18,586 miles of crude pipelines and 19,373 miles’ worth of gas pipelines. As long as demand for both remains robust — and it is — this company will continue reliably collecting cash. That’s why it’s not only been able to pay a quarterly dividend like clockwork for decades, but raise its annual payout for 31 consecutive years — and counting.
That being said, the company is being proactive about preparing for its eventual future, even if the industry’s inevitable change is years down the road. Namely, Enbridge is investing in power-related projects like an offshore wind farm in Courseulles, France, and a solar farm near San Antonio, Texas. While these may be outside of the company’s wheelhouse right now, it’s smart to establish roots that position Enbridge for any and all possible future scenarios.
Should you buy stock in PepsiCo right now?
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James Brumley has positions in Coca-Cola. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Enbridge. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
