Four dividend stocks just delivered strong earnings, but free cash flow and balance sheet strength separate the ones built to keep raising payouts from the ones that just look good on paper.
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Retirees need dividends that keep coming in bad years as well as good ones. The four names below share that: free cash flow that easily covers the payout, balance sheets that have been getting stronger, and long histories of raising the check. They also just came out of an earnings season that brought good news to income investors. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM | XOM Price Prediction) raised its dividend for the 44th consecutive year, and AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) lifted its quarterly payout by 5.2%. Chevron (NYSE:CVX) and ONEOK (NYSE:OKE) complete the list. Each one has analyst support you can check, but dividend safety comes first here. Yield comes second.
Company Dividend Yield Quarterly Dividend Consensus Target Recent Price Exxon Mobil 2.35% $1.07 $179.71 $178.26 Chevron 2.87% $1.78 $241.67 $226.52 AbbVie 2.28% $1.82 $283.19 $288.85 ONEOK 4.46% $1.07 $101.95 $93.01
Exxon Mobil: Decades of Raises With Cash to Spare
Yield: Exxon yields 2.35%. Its new quarterly dividend of $1.07 per share is payable December 10, 2026, to holders of record on November 16, 2026. This marks a 4% increase from the prior $1.03.
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Dividend safety: The coverage is wide. In the third quarter, Exxon produced $25.7 billion of operating cash flow and $19.1 billion of free cash flow. It returned $9.4 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. Net debt stands at $22.1 billion, net debt to EBITDA is 0.55, and interest coverage is 56.3x. The dividend record shows rising quarterly payments going back to 1999. The company puts its run at 44 consecutive years of annual increases. CEO Darren Woods was unusually direct about it on the earnings call: “From our perspective, we’re not going to ever cut our dividend.”
Bull case: Exxon is still growing production in places where it earns good returns. Guyana’s Stabroek Block has topped 1 billion barrels of oil. It is also expanding in the Permian Basin and has several LNG projects underway. It has captured $16.9 billion in structural cost savings since 2019 and plans to keep buybacks at $20 billion in 2027. At a forward P/E of 16, investors pay a moderate multiple for a dividend that has a long record of rising.
Risk: Of the four, Exxon has the coolest analyst support: 3 Strong Buy, 6 Buy and 17 Hold ratings, and no Sells. The consensus target of $179.71 sits almost exactly at the stock price. Shares are up 51.08% this year, so much of the good news may already be priced in. Oil price swings and disruptions in the Middle East are still the biggest swing factors for earnings.
Chevron: The Analyst Favorite in Big Oil
Yield: Chevron yields 2.87%, the higher of the two oil majors. Its $1.78 quarterly dividend is payable December 10, 2026, to holders of record on November 18, 2026.
Dividend safety: Free cash flow was $12.0 billion in the third quarter, up 156.9% year over year, on capital spending of $4.0 billion. In the second quarter, Chevron generated $18.1 billion of free cash flow and returned $6.62 billion to shareholders. Net debt fell $7.8 billion in the latest quarter. Net debt to EBITDA is 0.94, and interest coverage is 13.7x. The quarterly payout has climbed each year: $1.51 in 2023, $1.63 in 2024, $1.71 in 2025, and $1.78 in 2026.
Bull case: Chevron reported adjusted EPS of $5.28 against an estimate of $4.83, its seventh consecutive beat. The Hess deal has already delivered $1.5 billion in synergies. Chevron hit its $3 billion cost-savings target six months early, and its U.S. refineries ran a record 1.09M bpd. Looking further out, it has a 20-year power-purchase agreement with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) for a 2.67 gigawatt data center power project in West Texas. It also plans to nearly double output from its Venezuela joint ventures to about 600,000 barrels of oil per day by 2031. Analysts rate the stock 6 Strong Buy, 15 Buy, 4 Hold, and 1 Sell, with a consensus target of $241.67, above the recent price of $226.52.
Risk: Oil prices have been extremely volatile. Management said that during the third quarter, “we saw prices as low as $68, as high as $132 a barrel.” Lower natural gas prices and the work of fully integrating Hess could squeeze future results.
AbbVie: A Fast-Growing Dividend Backed by Pharma Cash
Yield: AbbVie yields 2.28%. It just raised its quarterly dividend from $1.73 to $1.82, payable February 16, 2027, to holders of record on January 15, 2027.
Dividend safety: AbbVie generated about $14 billion of free cash flow in the first 9 months of the year and ended September with $10.8 billion in cash. CFO Scott Reents said, “This robust free cash flow supports a strong and growing quarterly dividend.” The dividend record shows the quarterly payout rising every year, from $0.40 in 2013 to today’s level. Leverage is higher than at the oil majors, with net debt to EBITDA at 2.26 and interest coverage at 6.94x. Management expects net leverage to reach 2x over the next 2 to 3 years. AbbVie’s negative book value comes from accounting for the Allergan acquisition and from buybacks. Cash coverage of the dividend remains solid.
Bull case: AbbVie has largely replaced the sales it lost on Humira. Skyrizi brought in $5.78B (+22.7%) in the third quarter and Rinvoq $2.71B (+23.9%). Adjusted EPS of $3.82 came in ahead of the $3.78 estimate, and full-year adjusted EPS guidance was raised to $13.95 to $13.99. Analyst support is the strongest of the four: 7 Strong Buy, 16 Buy, 5 Hold and 1 Strong Sell. The stock trades at a forward P/E of 18.
Risk: Two older drugs are still shrinking. Humira sales fell to $683M (-31.2%), Imbruvica dropped 26.1%, and drug pricing reform remains a threat. The stock, at $288.85, already trades above the $283.19 consensus target.
ONEOK: The Highest Yield on the List, Now With Less Debt
Yield: ONEOK yields 4.46%, the highest of the group. It pays $1.07 per quarter, or $4.28 a year. The quarterly payout went from $0.955 in 2023 to $0.99 in 2024, $1.03 in 2025, and $1.07 in 2026.
Dividend safety: ONEOK raised its 2026 EPS guidance midpoint to $6.30, well above the $4.28 it pays out each year. Its adjusted EBITDA midpoint is now $8.55B. Its financial position improved sharply. ONEOK paid off ne
Source: 247wallst.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.
