General Electric Company (GE), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) & More: Five Dividend Stocks As Safe As Treasuries

We also identified oil and gas supermajor Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) as a fairly safe stock which pays a respectable dividend, with the yield coming out to 2.9% at current prices, and is AAA-rated. Large oil companies are generally trading at low earnings multiples, with Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM)’s forward P/E of 11 actually representing a premium to many of its peers. Of course, while the stock is arguably cheap there is significant commodity risk. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust owned 7.6 million shares of Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) according to its most recent 13F filing; check out more stocks the trust is invested in.

Rounding out our list is Automatic Data Processing (NYSE:ADP), the $33 billion market cap business services company perhaps best known for administering payroll and other HR functions. It is rated AAA, and while Automatic Data Processing (NYSE:ADP)’s dividend yield is lower than the other companies we’ve discussed here it is still fairly generous at 2.6%. However, the stock does not look like a good value to us: the trailing and forward earnings multiples are both above 20, and in its most recent quarterly report (from the quarter ending in December, the second quarter of Automatic Data Processing (NYSE:ADP)’s fiscal year) revenue and earnings only saw moderate increases.

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.