2 No-Brainer High-Yield Stocks to Buy With $1,000 Right Now
Annaly Capital Management (NYSE: NLY) is offering a massive 14%-plus dividend yield today. And the dividend was just increased at the start of 2025, too. Sounds great, right? But, before you run out and buy the stock, you need to dig into the company's history just a little bit. You'll likely be better off with the lower yields on offer from Realty Income (NYSE: O) and Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE: BNS).
Here's why Annaly could set income investors up for failure while Realty Income and Bank of Nova Scotia should leave you rolling in the dough.
Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »
What are you looking to achieve with dividends?
Dividend investors come in all shapes and sizes, so there's no one right way to invest in dividend stocks. However, a common theme is that dividend investors are often trying to create an income stream that can support them in retirement. This is an important fact to consider as you invest your hard-earned savings, be it $100, $1,000, or $100,000. Far too often, investors chase yield without giving proper consideration to the risk of dividend cuts.
This is the big problem with Annaly Capital Management's huge dividend yield. The company is a mortgage real estate investment trust (mREIT). That means it buys mortgages that have been pooled into bond-like securities, not physical properties that it leases to tenants. Mortgage REITs are very similar to mutual funds, with the REITs earning the difference between their costs (which include interest expenses) and the interest they receive from the securities they buy.
There are a lot of moving parts, but the important outcome is that the dividends that mREITs pay have proven to be rather unreliable. As the chart below highlights, even though Annaly Capital just increased its dividend in 2025, that comes after a long string of cuts. And even before that string of cuts, the dividend was up and down.
Data by YCharts.
Notice, however, that the share price has tended to trend along with the dividend. So that long downtrend in the dividend meant that income-focused investors would have been left with less income and less capital. That's a terrible outcome for anyone trying to live off their dividends.
Stick with consistent dividend stocks
Compare the ups and downs of Annaly Capital's dividend to the three decades worth of annual dividend increases on offer from the property-owning REIT Realty Income. Its 5.6% yield may be lower, but if you want to feel comfortable that you'll keep getting paid at the same or higher rate, Realty Income wins hands down. And the business model is much easier for investors to understand, given that Realty Income does the same thing you would do if you owned a rental property, only on a much larger scale.
Scale is important here, though, because Realty Income is the largest net lease REIT, which just means its tenants pay for most property-level operating costs. Being large has allowed Realty Income to become highly diversified, with over 15,600 properties spread across the United States and Europe. It owns retail, industrial, and a fairly broad group of "other" assets, like vineyards and casinos. All in, it is one of the most diversified and reliable REITs you can own. Boring is really the name of the game for high-yield Realty Income.
For those who don't mind taking on a little more risk, a good choice could be Bank of Nova Scotia, commonly known as Scotiabank. It has paid a dividend every single year since 1833. It didn't cut its dividend like many of the largest U.S. banks did during the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009. And while it paused the increases in its dividend in 2024 as it shifted its business model slightly, it increased them again in 2025. Add in a lofty 5.9% dividend yield, and you can see why dividend investors might be attracted to the stock.
The key here is that Scotiabank is Canadian. Canada has a highly regulated banking market, with regulators basically giving a handful of large banks entrenched positions. Scotiabank is one of those banks, so the business has a very strong foundation. The heavy regulation has also created a conservative ethos that permeates Scotiabank's operations both in its home market and abroad.
That said, a decision to focus on Central and South America for growth didn't pan out as well as management had hoped. Scotiabank is now refocusing its growth on Mexico and the United States, and making solid early progress. The dividend increase is proof of that. Scotiabank is another solid option if you are looking to buy a reliable dividend stock.
What does $1,000 get you?
With $1,000, you can buy around 18 shares of Scotiabank and 17 shares of Realty Income. And then you can sit back and collect attractive yields that are backed by dividends that are likely to grow over time. Or you can buy 50 or so shares of ultra-high-yielding Annaly Capital and pray that the income stream in the future isn't as volatile as the mREIT's dividend history suggests it will be. Most dividend investors will be better off with Realty Income and Scotiabank.
Should you invest $1,000 in Annaly Capital Management right now?
Before you buy stock in Annaly Capital Management, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Annaly Capital Management wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $704,676!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $950,198!*
Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to175%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.
See the 10 stocks »
*Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Post
an hour ago
- National Post
'What if we just forced people to buy stuff?': The imagined thoughts of the Canadian EV mandate
Article content The Carney government is under growing pressure to drop what is known as the 'EV mandate.' This is a policy first introduced in 2022 wherein Canadian auto manufacturers will be mandated to sell a minimum quantity of EVs each year until 2035, when the sale of new gas-powered cars will be banned entirely. Article content The singular problem with the mandate is that nobody wants to buy EVs. Even with Canada having the highest fuel prices in the hemisphere, sales of EVs have only ever peaked at about 20 per cent of new vehicle sales. And even that has been in freefall in recent months. Article content In Dear Diary, the National Post satirically re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. This week, Tristin Hopper takes a journey inside the thoughts of the EV mandate. Article content Monday Article content One of the most pressing challenges of modern governance is how to compel ones' citizenry to meet a rote, inconsistent and often contradictory picture of ideal behaviour. We have identified the perfect Canadian life: The specific pattern of development milestones, core values and consumer choices that will yield a citizen best attuned to the interests of the collective. Article content The only problem is to how to take this average Canadian — a scared, superstitious and mostly obese bipedal primate — and mould them into the rational, inclusive, evidence-based form that we have decreed for them. Article content Because it is here where we are weakest. I need not remind you that China is nipping at our heels. If we are to stay competitive, I'm afraid that we risk too much by sticking to archaic models of 'letting people buy the vehicles they would like to buy.' Article content I admit the EV mandate may look draconian in isolation. If presented as a stark dichotomy of 'freedom' versus 'compulsion,' a sentimental public will naturally favour the former. Article content But if we start from the premise that the Canadian public must obviously be compelled to cease purchasing internal combustion engines within 10 years, then the only question is how to go about it. Article content My sober and reasonable offer is that private businesses be obliged to meet an objective, and the details are left to them … as would be expected of any free society. Article content Would a better solution be to incarcerate the owners of gas-powered cars? To mandate gasoline additives that prematurely wear the engines of ICE vehicles? To make highways more dangerous to facilitate higher attrition of the existing vehicle fleet? I think you'll agree that mine is the most humane and inobtrusive option. Article content Wednesday Article content In this line of work, one quickly grows weary of the bottomless mendacity of the auto sector. Their chief criticism of the EV mandate, to my read, is that it stands in defiance of 'consumer preferences.' They say the Canadian auto buyer does not want to purchase EVs at the 'arbitrary' rates we are setting, and thus the program is unworkable. Article content I find their lack of imagination insulting, if not traitorous. These are companies that routinely convince chartered accountants that their daily driver needs to be a Ford F-350. Or that a 700-horsepower sedan is an appropriate vehicle to pick up their kids from school. There are people out there driving Cybertrucks, Pontiac Azteks and Hummer H2s, all of them brainwashed by clever marketing into thinking that they made a smart decision. Article content Tell the public that the gas cars cause impotence. Shoot a couple commercials with Jason Statham. Offer the cars with a free Spotify subscription. It's not my fault you're not trying hard enough to sell EVs. Article content The public has an unfortunate habit of obsessing over the alleged downsides of green policy. This came up often in regards to carbon pricing. Joe and Sally Taxpayer would complain endlessly about the extra $10 or $20 at their fill-up, without a thought as to how their government had won the acclaim of closing plenary delegates at multiple U.N. climate change summits. Article content But these boors miss the opportunity inherent in the mandate. Remember when we made it unbelievably difficult to build houses, thus causing a housing shortage that caused the existing housing stock to perpetually skyrocket in value? In a world with no new gas-powered cars, your 2009 Jetta could become a luxury commodity sooner than you think. Article content The worst thing about all this current controversy is that when the policy is inevitably a smashing success, all of today's critics will pretend they supported it all along. But any cursory reading of history reveals that true progress comes only from government telling private firms the precise share of their sales that should be filled by a politically desirable consumer product. Article content Did the fisherman not swap out row boats for motor vessels because a government told him to? Did we not transition from VHS to DVDs based on the sage yet mandatory advice of a centralized bureaucracy? Forcing people to purchase things is the Canadian way. Article content
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
Walmart's Big Insider Trade! Founding Walton Family Sells $329M of WMT Stock
The Walton Family Holdings Trust, a majority shareholder (more than 10% owner) of the American big-box retailer Walmart (WMT), recently sold common stock valued at approximately $329.64 million. This transaction marks the sixth big Informative Sell transaction by the trust this year, implying a continued reduction in its ownership. The Walton Family Holdings Trust, owned by the Walton Family, is the largest shareholder of the retailer and also holds the most voting power. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter Walmart was founded roughly six decades ago by brothers Sam and Bud Walton from the Walton family. Today, the Walton family is recognized as one of the wealthiest in the world. The family's current heirs, Jim Walton, Alice Walton, and Rob Walton, also serve as co-trustees of the Walton Family Holdings Trust. A corporate insider's share sale usually signals caution about the company's future potential. However, an insider might sell shares for other reasons, such as financial or personal obligations. A Closer Look at the Insider's Transactions As per Form 4 filed with the SEC on June 26, the Walton Family Holdings Trust sold 3,356,619 WMT stock between on June 24 and June 25. Shares were sold in three tranches at weighted average prices ranging between $98.1225 and $99.0311 apiece. Following the latest share sale, the trust still owns 552,609,839 WMT common shares worth $53.06 billion, based on Thursday's closing stock price of $96.02. The exact intent of the trust's share sale remains unknown at the moment. WMT stock currently has a Very Negative Insider Confidence Signal on TipRanks, based on Informative Sell transactions worth $1.6 billion, undertaken in the last three months. It is important to keep an eye on the Informative trades of corporate insiders, given their knowledge of a company's growth potential. Interestingly, TipRanks offers daily insider transactions as well as a list of top corporate insiders. It also provides a list of hot stocks that boast either a Very Positive or Positive insider confidence signal. Is Walmart a Long-Term Buy? On TipRanks, WMT stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 28 Buys and one Hold rating. Also, the average Walmart price target of $109.71 implies 14.3% upside potential from current levels. Year-to-date, WMT stock has gained 6.8%. See more WMT analyst ratings
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
Bold Prediction: 2 Bank Stocks That Will Be Worth More Than JPMorgan Chase 20 Years From Now
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is a massive financial institution with more assets than any other U.S. bank and an $804 billion market cap. To be perfectly clear, it is a remarkable business with fantastic leadership. Having said that, while I think JPMorgan Chase will continue to grow over the coming years, I don't necessarily think it will be on top of the industry forever. While there's no way to know what the banking industry or U.S. economy will look like in a couple of decades, there are some companies that have massive opportunities and the potential to grow rapidly. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More » I realize this is a bold prediction. There's a lot that needs to go right for any other bank stock to get close to JPMorgan Chase's market cap. But if we're looking at a time frame of 20 years, these two have a better chance than many experts think. A highly profitable bank with some interesting possibilities As of this writing, Capital One (NYSE: COF) has a $135 billion market cap, so it would have to outpace JPMorgan Chase by about 500% to overtake it. But in a 20-year period, that's certainly within the realm of possibilities. For one thing, Capital One doesn't necessarily need to grow its business to the size of JPMorgan Chase. Because of its credit card and auto lending focus, Capital One has far better net-interest margins. The bank has done an excellent job of innovating and is the third-largest player in the credit card industry with about $850 billion in credit card purchase volume last year. But after its recent acquisition of Discover, it has the number one share in credit card loans. Over the past decade alone, Capital One's credit card spending volume has more than tripled, so there's excellent growth momentum here. Furthermore, Capital One has about $470 billion in total deposits, about one-fourth of what JPMorgan Chase has today. Capital One has done an excellent job of not only modernizing the branch-based banking experience but has also been the first major bank to offer high-yield deposit products to branch customers. I could see its deposit growth outpacing its big-bank competitors over the coming years. Finally, one factor that could help catapult Capital One to the next level is that it is now the only large U.S. consumer-facing bank to have its own payment network. At first, this will be mostly useful to avoid paying companies like Visa and Mastercard interchange fees on its own card products, but over time there could be interesting possibilities to build out the Discover network as a truly competitive alternative to the payment-processing giants. An app that could replace your bank, broker, and more The Capital One prediction is certainly bold, but there's a clear path to get there, especially if the Discover network truly gains traction as a globally competitive payment network. But this next one is admittedly a bit of a stretch. SoFi (NASDAQ: SOFI) has a market cap of about $18.4 billion today, which means that JPMorgan Chase is roughly 44 times as valuable. But if SoFi can keep its momentum going, grow its brand recognition, and continue to build out its ecosystem, it could be a massive long-term winner. Management has said that the goal is to become a top 10 financial institution, which would require it to grow more than 10X from its current asset size, so the bank's leadership team is certainly aiming high. While other personal finance apps aim to do one or two things better than traditional banks, such as offering high-yield savings accounts or a stock-trading platform, SoFi is building a true bank replacement. The ultimate goal is for SoFi to be able to do everything your current bank, brokerage, insurance agent, and other financial services businesses do -- all in one app and better than the legacy providers. The company's growth momentum has been impressive to say the least. Its membership base has tripled over the past three years, and SoFi (which only received a banking charter in 2022) has grown its deposit base from zero to $27 billion. There are several major catalysts that could take SoFi to the next level. The third-party loan platform is one big example that is growing fast. It's where SoFi originates loans on behalf of third-party partners and makes applicant referrals, generating a low-risk stream of fee income from the massive personal loan industry. SoFi's home loan business is another example. Even in a terribly slow real estate market with elevated interest rates, SoFi originated nearly six times the home loan volume in the first quarter than it did two years ago. With Americans sitting on more equity ($35 trillion) and pent-up home-buying demand than ever, this could be a massive opportunity. Cryptocurrency is a recent development that could bring more customers into SoFi's ecosystem. The bank recently announced that not only will it be bringing crypto trading back to its app by the end of the year but will use blockchain technology to facilitate cross-border money transfers quicker and more cost effectively than peers, and this is a $93 billion market. These are meant to be bold predictions As a final thought, keep in mind that these are meant to be two bold predictions. There's a lot that would need to go well for either of these companies to overtake JPMorgan Chase's position as the most valuable U.S. bank. It's possible, but it's not especially likely. However, even if JPMorgan Chase remains the largest U.S. bank in two decades, that's OK. These are two well-run banks with massive market opportunities, and I'm quite confident that they'll deliver strong returns for investors over the long term. I own both in my personal stock portfolio and can't wait to watch their next chapters unfold. Should you invest $1,000 in Capital One Financial right now? Before you buy stock in Capital One Financial, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Capital One Financial wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $704,676!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $950,198!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to175%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Matt Frankel has positions in Capital One Financial and SoFi Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool recommends Capital One Financial. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
