The Latest on the Highest Dividend Yields in the Market

Welcome to the fifth issue of The Big Dividend Report!

For new readers, in this series my aim is to check under the hood of the biggest dividends in the market and to keep you updated on the latest and greatest. We will limit ourselves to the biggest 20 dividend yields coming from companies with at least $2 billion in market cap.

In our first go-round, we looked at the payout ratio, the most fundamental metric to check for dividend health. In our second report, we looked at recent price movements in this volatile market. In our third report, we looked at recent news for the mortgage REIT industry. And our fourth report highlighted possible opportunities in foreign telecom.

Let's take a look at where those same 20 companies stand today.

Source: Yahoo! Finance and Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

The first thing we see in the table is American Capital Agency breaking the 20% dividend yield threshold on a slightly falling stock price. Get a summary of the latest news and trends facing the mortgage REITS (the first five companies in the table).

Another big dividend area of the market is master limited partnerships, or MLPs, of which Cheniere Energy Partners, Inergy, and Terra Nitrogen count themselves. As fellow Fool Dan Caplinger explains, "Master limited partnerships let companies in the natural resources industry structure their businesses to achieve tax advantages over ordinary corporations." In a recent piece, he takes a look at the possibility of more onerous short-term taxation and concludes that even if MLPs were ever taxed like regular corporations, investors wouldn't be hurt much, if at all, in the long run.

Finally, we had some news earlier this week from Nokia, which is cutting another 3,500 jobs under the stress of tough competition in the smartphone market. Its first smartphones using Microsoft Windows as the operating system are due out later this year. The operating system replaces its homegrown Symbian OS as Nokia tries to stay relevant against stiff competition from Android-based phones and the iPhone.

This ends our fifth issue of The Big Dividend Report. To keep track of all our analysis on any of these companies, including future issues of The Big Dividend Report, add them to My Watchlist.

At the time thisarticle was published Anand Chokkaveluowns shares of Frontier Communications and Apple.You can follow his thoughts onTwitter.The Motley Fool owns shares of Veolia Environnement, Annaly Capital Management, Google, Chimera Investment, and Apple.Motley Fool newsletter serviceshave recommended buying shares of Apple, Cellcom Israel, and Google, as well as creating a bull call spread position in Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 - 2011 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.