Advertisement Whether you’re pulling in a paycheck or living off investments, dividends can be a great way to reel in some cash. But investors usually have to wait months between payments. Many companies dole out dividends in March, June, September and December. If all your payments land in that timetable, your income stream can dry up for long stretches. To keep the cash flowing, we assembled a bundle of 12 stocks that pays dividends every month, generating income like a steady paycheck. We focused on firms with steady businesses, sturdy balance sheets and a commitment to uphold their payouts. Not all the stocks boast fat yields. But our lower-yielding picks feature strong profit potential, along with room to hike their dividends. A portfolio of equal stakes in each stock would yield 3.3%. That beats the 2.1% yield of Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the 1.5% yield of 10-year Treasury bonds. Stocks can fall far more than bonds, of course. But if you stick with this lineup, the payments should roll in. Most of these firms should increase their dividends each year, too. All data as of July 31. Price/earnings ration based on estimated earnings over the next 12 months. Sources: Nasdaq, Thomson Reuters, Yahoo


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below January: Cardinal Health Advertisement Symbol: CAH Price: $84 Yield: 2.2% Annual dividend rate: $1.80 Price-earnings ratio: 15 Also pays in: April, July, October Drug distributor Cardinal runs a high-volume, low-profit-margin business that faces heavy pressure from rivals. But Cardinal is taking measures to fire up its growth.

CAH QUIZ: How Well Do You Know Dividends? The firm recently acquired Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis unit, which makes stents and other cardiology devices. Cardinal expects Cordis to bolster the firm’s international sales and boost annual earnings by more than 20 cents per share, or $65 million. Moreover, Cardinal has teamed up with CVS Health (its biggest customer) to buy generic drugs, helping Cardinal negotiate better deals that could lift its profits. Wall Street estimates that profits will climb 8% in the fiscal year that ends in June 2017. As the business improves, the shares should hit $97 over the next year, says Credit Suisse, which rates the stock “outperform.”


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below February: AbbVie Advertisement Symbol: ABBV Price: $66 Yield: 3.4% Annual dividend rate: $2.28 Price-earnings ratio: 13 Also pays in: May, August, November AbbVie produces Humira, one of the world’s best-selling drugs. Physicians are prescribing Humira for a growing array of illnesses, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and psoriasis. Raking in more than $14 billion in annual sales, Humira accounts for more than half of AbbVie revenues and an even higher proportion of the firm’s profits, which are rising steadily. Unfortunately, Humira’s starring role won’t last. Its U.S. patent expires at the end of 2016. But because Humira is a complex biotech drug, generic versions will likely take several years to gain traction in the marketplace and may not wind up being much less expensive than Humira. Meanwhile, AbbVie is expanding its roster of drugs to treat blood cancers and other diseases. Wall Street sees earnings growth of 12% this year and 18% in 2017.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below March: Boeing Advertisement Symbol: BA Price: $134 Yield: 3.3% Annual dividend rate: $4.36 Price-earnings ratio: 14 Also pays in: June, September, December Aerospace giant Boeing has hit some turbulence.

BA SEE ALSO: What You Must Know About a Stock's Dividend Date Investors fret that demand for its wide-body planes is peaking. Plus, a strong dollar is crimping profits, and low oil prices may delay orders for new aircraft as customers stick with older, less-efficient planes. Yet Boeing’s stock, down 6.1% this year, may already reflect those concerns. The firm’s aircraft production backlog remains enormous, with, Boeing says, orders for 5,700 new planes worth $480 billion. Meanwhile, the firm’s defense, space and security business looks solid, with sales rising 19% in the first three months of 2016, to nearly $8 billion. All told, Boeing’s bears have “overstepped reality,” says Deutsche Bank, which expects the stock to reach $160 over the next year.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below April: Coca-Cola Advertisement Symbol: KO Price: $44 Yield: 3.2% Annual dividend rate: $1.40 Price-earnings ratio: 22 Also pays in: December, July, October Yes, people are drinking less soda, but the soft drink giant can still thrive. Price increases and expanding sales of bottled water (Dasani), energy drinks (Powerade), juices (Minute Maid, Simply Orange) and other products in its lineup are offsetting some of the decline in soda sales. Coca-Cola is also slimming down. The firm is exiting the capital-intensive bottling business almost entirely, transferring 84,000 employees from its workforce of 123,000 to independent bottlers. The shift will shave about $10 billion from Coca-Cola’s revenues by the end of 2017, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. But the move will save billions of dollars in overhead and bolster profit margins. Wall Street expects Coca-Cola to report earnings of $8.7 billion in 2017, up 5% from 2016. That ought to please one of the company’s biggest cheerleaders, Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owns about 9% of Coke’s outstanding shares.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below May: Apple Advertisement Symbol: AAPL Price: $104 Yield: 2.2% Annual dividend rate: $2.28 Price-earnings ratio: 12 Also pays in: February, August, November Skepticism about Apple runs so high that the stock’s price-earnings ratio of 12 is 35% less than the P/E of the average big utility.

AAPL SEE ALSO: 6 Good Dividend Stocks That Yield 5% or More Bears argue that Apple’s innovation machine has stalled and that its flagship product, the iPhone, won’t lure as many customers as expected in China and other key markets, where lower-priced smartphones are making inroads. Yet Apple’s competitive strengths remain formidable. Its “ecosystem” of hardware, software and services keeps many customers locked in and coming back for new products. Sales are likely to pick up with the expected September launch of the iPhone 7. Apple is also developing additional revenue streams, such as a new subscription model for app developers and paid search ads on its App Store site. With $233 billion in cash and securities on its balance sheet and access to low-cost debt, Apple’s finances provide plenty of firepower for more dividend hikes.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below June: Microsoft Advertisement Symbol: MSFT Price: $57 Yield: 2.5% Annual dividend rate: $1.44 Price-earnings ratio: 12 Also pays in: March, September, December Microsoft tried to make a splash this year by undertaking its biggest acquisition ever—a proposed $26.2 billion deal to buy networking site LinkedIn. Yet the stock hardly budged on the news, partly because Microsoft already makes more than $20 billion a year in profits, vastly more than LinkedIn could kick in. But the stock jumped by more than 5% on the day after Microsoft issued results for its April–June quarter that handily exceeded Wall Street forecasts, with big gains in the firm’s cloud-computing business and steady growth in its flagship Office software suite. Profits are likely to keep inching up as Microsoft launches new software products and signs up more customers for its cloud services. All this makes Microsoft a kind of “tech utility” that can deliver steady earnings growth and a rising dividend, which Wall Street expects to increase by 7% over the next year. With the shares up 24% over the past year, the stock may take a breather in the near term. But, helped by a steadily growing disbursement, it should perform well over the long haul.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below July: General Electric Advertisement Symbol: GE Price: $31 Yield: 3.0% Annual dividend rate: $0.92 Price-earnings ratio: 21 Also pays in: January, April, October

GE SEE ALSO: Is There a Bubble in Dividend Stocks? Few, if any, rivals can match GE’s global scale and expertise in assembling products such as aircraft engines, gas and wind turbines, locomotives, and health care imaging machines. Plus, GE is no longer shackled by its huge financial-services business, which it has mostly sold off. Armed with a stronger balance sheet, GE can now spend more heavily on dividends and stock buybacks, along with acquisitions that could lift its bottom line. At 21 times estimated profits, GE’s stock looks pricey and may not have much appreciation potential in the near term. But the dividend appears to be secure, and analysts estimate that GE will boost the payout to $1.00 per share in 2017 — a healthy 9% raise.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below August: AT&T Advertisement Symbol: T Price: $43 Yield: 4.4% Annual dividend rate: $1.92 Price-earnings ratio: 15 Also pays in: February, May, November AT&T’s purchase of DirecTV last year is boosting results. Analysts see the telecom giant’s revenues rising 12%, to $165 billion this year, with profits climbing 5%, to $17.6 billion. Growth of such magnitude isn’t likely to last, but AT&T should still be a solid earner, thanks to new TV services it plans to roll out. To help retain customers, the firm is also offering package deals with unlimited mobile data for subscribers who buy TV service, too. The knock on AT&T is that the stock, selling for about 15 times estimated year-ahead earnings, is pricey relative to its earnings growth. But compared with the paltry yield on Treasuries, the stock’s 4.4% yield looks appealing. AT&T’s dividend should keep rising, though modestly. Analysts see AT&T lifting the payout by 2% next year.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below September: United Parcel Service Advertisement Symbol: UPS Price: $108 Yield: 2.9% Annual dividend rate: $3.12 Price-earnings ratio: 18 Also pays in: March, June, December

UPS SEE ALSO: Best Funds for Dividends Other Than Vanguard Dividend Growth One day in the future, drones dispatched by Amazon.com may drop packages on our doorsteps. But that won’t happen soon, making UPS a good bet to benefit from people buying more goods online. Delivering more than 4.5 billion packages and documents a year, the firm is constantly finding ways to speed things up, using technology to plan the best routes and squeeze every penny out of each drop-off. Its latest venture: rolling out digital-locker pickup spots at retailers such as 7-Eleven. Over the long term, UPS will have to fend off FedEx and other rivals, including Amazon, which is adding thousands of trucks to its own delivery fleet. Yet it won’t be easy to match UPS’s vast global transport network and high-tech logistics services. UPS is more profitable than FedEx and DHL. Even after pumping cash back into the business, UPS should have ample funds to hike its dividend, which has climbed an annualized 10% since its first payout, in 2000.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below October: Occidental Petroleum Advertisement Symbol: OXY Price: $75 Yield: 4.1% Annual dividend rate: $3.04 Price-earnings ratio: 88 Also pays in: March, June, December One of the largest domestic oil producers, Oxy reported big losses as oil prices collapsed. Yet its stock has stayed relatively strong. So has its dividend, which Oxy recently lifted from an annual rate of $3 per share to $3.04 per share. Conservatively managed, Oxy keeps its debt low, socks away cash that it can later dole out as dividends, and refrains from spending heavily on risky oil or natural gas prospects. With its production costs now falling, the firm can break even and cover its dividend with the per-barrel price of oil in the mid $40s, estimates Merrill Lynch. Oxy is also expanding with a new natural gas plant in the United Arab Emirates and a petrochemicals plant in Texas. Oxy’s P/E looks high because earnings are depressed. But analysts see profits rebounding to $1.38 per share in 2017 and continuing to climb from there.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below November: Verizon Communications Advertisement Symbol: VZ Price: $55 Yield: 4.1% Annual dividend rate: $2.26 Price-earnings ratio: 14 Also pays in: February, May, August

VZ SEE ALSO: Great Stocks With Rising Dividends Bundling packages of phone, internet and TV services is helping Verizon, the second-largest telecom provider, defend its turf against cable companies and its bigger rival, AT&T. Verizon now controls all of its wireless business (after buying Vodafone’s 45% stake in 2014). Verizon has also gone on a spending spree to expand beyond telecom services. The company snapped up AOL and recently announced a deal to buy Yahoo for $4.8 billion. In addition, Verizon plans to buy Fleetmatics, which makes vehicle-tracking software, for $2.4 billion. Trading at 14 times estimated earnings, the stock isn’t cheap in light of a profit-growth forecast of just 3% in 2017. But in a low-yield world, investors are paying up for the kind of stability Verizon offers, with dividends that should climb steadily for years.


Advertisement - Article continues below

Advertisement - Article continues below December: Valero Energy Advertisement Symbol: VLO Price: $52 Yield: 4.6% Annual dividend rate: $2.40 Price-earnings ratio: 12 Also pays in: March, June, September The world’s largest independent refiner, Valero produces gasoline, ethanol and other products. With more than half of its production capacity located along the Gulf Coast, Valero has access to a variety of imported and domestic raw materials, such as heavy crude oil and natural gas, at low prices. It’s also in a good position to ship refined goods to Latin America, where demand is growing at a healthy clip. Those advantages have helped make Valero one of the lower-cost and more-profitable refiners. It is also conservatively managed, carrying just a modest amount of debt. With the industry now mired in a downturn, Valero’s profits have tumbled. But even with earnings expected to slide 65% this year, to $3.24 per share, Valero should rake in more than enough cash to cover its dividend. Analysts see earnings per share rebounding 60% in 2017. If that doesn’t pan out and the stock stays flat, investors should still be able to scoop up a 4.6% yield.


Advertisement - Article continues below