A few months ago, I had put together a list of the top international stocks that did prove to be very popular. I believe very strongly in adding international stocks to any dividend portfolio. That does not however require opening accounts in foreign countries and trying to trade in all kinds of exotic currencies. In fact, most of the largest companies around the world, no matter where they are based, do hhave their stocks trading on US markets. Some are only available through pink sheets which is a whole other story. In most cases though, companies such as Credit Suisse (CS), France Telecom (FTE), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Vodafone (VOD) which we reviewed recently are very easy to trade in the US.

Another option of course is to add US based stocks that have a large portion of their activity outside of the country, such as Aflac (AFL) which I picked as part of the stock picking competition and also recently added to the Ultimate Sustainable Dividend Portfolio.

One important aspect about adding international dividend payers is that in some countries, companies end up waiting to see their yearly results to pay out dividends. This practice has benefits and downsides:

Benefits:

-strong dividends in general as companies do not feel the pressure that dividend aristocrats feel for example
-management incentives to maximize profits (and thus dividends)
-healthier for the company as it pays what it can afford to pay

Downsides:

-Less reliable (these companies can reduce their payouts at any moment)

So today, I wanted to present, among the group of foreign based stocks that I follow, those that pay out the top dividend yield. Let’s start off that way:

[table “390” not found /]

Clearly, as I say every month, having the top dividend yield is not enough. In fact, it’s rarely a good sign:) So let’s dig a bit deeper. I took all of those names and looked for companies that have increased dividends and sales by 5% or more annually over 5 years with a dividend yield of 5% or more. Then, I removed companies that have a payout ratio over 75%. Guess how many names I have left? Just 5:)

[table “389” not found /]

What are your thougghts on these? I will certainly take a deeper look but I thought it was quite interesting:)