Stocks to Fund Retirement: ExxonMobil (XOM)
I should be clear that I don’t expect ExxonMobil stock to do much over the next few months. Exxon is down about 20% from its 52-week highs set before last year’s oil-price collapse, and I expect it to recover nicely … eventually.
But for that to happen, the price of energy needs to stabilize, and that may very well take a while.
In the meantime, investors would be wise to average in to Exxon on any large dips. Exxon is one of the safest dividend payers in existence, having raised its dividend for 32 consecutive years and counting.
Exxon even managed to continue growing its dividend during the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s, when energy prices slumped into a two-decade bear market.
At today’s prices, Exxon yields about 3.5%. And over the past decade, Exxon has raised its dividend at a 10% annual clip.
Is that kind of growth realistic with oil priced where it is today? Probably not. But even if dividend growth comes in at half that rate over the next decade, that’s still pretty solid and more than enough to ensure a happy retirement.
Source: Investor Place
