2 Dividend Stocks to Buy for a Lifetime of Passive Income


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Dividend investors don’t buy shares of companies hoping they will suspend their payouts soon. The longer a corporation maintains its dividend program, the more attractive it is to income seekers, all else being equal. However, few businesses on Wall Street can sustain consistent — and growing — dividends for a long time.

Let’s discuss two that have what it takes to pay investors regular dividends for good: Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) and AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV).

Biotech giant Amgen first declared a dividend in 2011. Since then, the drugmaker has increased its payouts regularly, growing them by a whopping 750% in that period. That’s a pretty good track record, and there is more where that came from, given Amgen’s excellent underlying business. The company has a deep lineup of medicines that includes growth drivers like Repatha, a drug used to decrease the risk of heart attacks in certain patients; asthma therapy Tezspire; Teppezza, which treats thyroid eye disease (TED), and more.

In 2024, Amgen’s revenue increased by 19% year over year to $33.4 billion. Though that was partly due to acquisitions, the drugmaker’s sales grew organically by 7% year over year, which is still good for a biotech of this size. Sure, Amgen has encountered issues. Late last year, the company’s shares dropped off a cliff after its investigational weight loss treatment, MariTide, delivered positive, but not positive enough, results in phase 2 studies.

However, Amgen has already recouped most of these losses, unsurprisingly. For one, MariTide could still go on to carve out a niche in the lucrative and fast-growing weight loss space. Further, Amgen has several other pipeline candidates that should earn approval in the next few years. Even some of the company’s current growth drivers will earn label expansions and improve their sales over time. That includes Tezspire, which delivered positive phase 3 results in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis in November.

Tepezza remains the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for TED, and Amgen has been launching it in other countries. Amgen can consistently develop newer and better drugs, just as it has for a long time, and deliver solid financial results that will allow it to maintain its dividend program. Amgen offers a forward yield of about 3%, compared to the S&P 500’s average of 1.3%.

The company’s cash payout ratio is about 47%, giving it plenty of room to grow its dividend. Here’s the bottom line: Amgen is an excellent stock for long-term, income-seeking investors.



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