Is Medical Properties Trust's 8.4%-Yielding Dividend Safe?
High-yielding dividend stocks can provide investors with some mouthwatering payouts that appear too good to pass up. Medical Properties Trust (NYSE: MPW) is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that offers investors an incredibly high yield of 8.4% today -- that's more than six times the S 500 average of 1.3%.
At such a high payout, you would only need to invest about $11,900 to expect to collect $1,000 in dividends over the course of an entire year. Contrast that with the S 500's more modest yield, where you would have to invest around $77,000 to collect that same amount of dividends, and it's easy to see why a high-yielding stock such as Medical Properties can be so enticing.
The big question, however, is whether that dividend is indeed safe. Buying a stock for its high yield only for the company to stop paying it or cutting it later can be a big blow to investors, and it can send the stock price into a tailspin as well.
Source Fool.com
