A fat dividend usually comes with a catch. Sometimes the catch is a business under pressure, sometimes an industry with an end date, sometimes a slow shift in what the world needs. Looking at each threat directly is one of the better ways to judge whether the payout is likely to last.
Three stocks yield at least triple the S&P 500’s roughly 1.1%, and each faces a different challenge. What they share is a record of paying and raising dividends through it all.
Enbridge (ENB): The Threat Is the Energy Transition
The long-term risk for Enbridge is that the world will eventually need less oil and natural gas. That day is far off. The International Energy Agency’s latest outlook sees oil demand rising every year through 2050, from a little over 100 million barrels a day to 113 million.
Meanwhile, Enbridge is paid a flat fee to move product through 18,586 miles of crude pipelines and 19,373 miles of gas pipelines, so its cash flow doesn’t hinge on the price of oil or gas. That is how it has paid a quarterly dividend for decades and raised its annual payout for 31 consecutive years.
It is also planting seeds for later, with an offshore wind farm in Courseulles, France, and a solar farm near San Antonio, Texas. The yield is about 5.6%, the shares trade near $50, and the market cap is roughly $110.6 billion.
Altria Group (MO): The Threat Is Fewer Smokers
Altria’s challenge is the plain one: people are smoking less over time, and eventually the cigarette business will fade. But the pace is slow. The CDC says more than two-thirds of U.S. smokers want to quit, yet only a little more than half tried in the past year and fewer than 10% succeeded. About 11.6% of a slowly growing population still smokes, and vaping is rising as another way to deliver nicotine.
Altria owns Marlboro-maker Philip Morris USA, vaping brand Njoy, and pouch maker Helix Innovations. Cigarette volume fell nearly 3% through the first three quarters of 2026, yet organic revenue rose more than 3% on higher prices and growth in other products. Earnings per share reached $4.33, up 5.1%, extending 61 dividend increases over 57 years.
The forward yield is nearly 5.8%, which compensates investors for the finite runway, even though the end date is hard to pin down.
PepsiCo (PEP): The Threat Was Inflation, and It May Be Easing
PepsiCo’s trouble was inflation, which helped drive its shares down 28% from their 2023 peak and pushed the yield up to about 4.2%. Coca-Cola, by contrast, has risen 50% in two years, which has pulled its forward yield down to a multiyear low of 2.2%.
The dividend has survived, with 54 consecutive annual increases, and the business may be turning. Third-quarter revenue improved 3.1%, up from 1.7% growth last year, and the company is guiding to organic growth of around 3% this year. Its prebiotic cola and protein-enriched snack chips look like they’re gaining traction.
Investors are catching on, and the stock has bounced about 12% since early October. It trades near $144, with a market cap near $194 billion.
