On the other hand, Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW)’s stock inched down by 1% year-to-date. Earlier this year, Citigroup and JPMorgan raised their price targets on the stock to $27.00 with ‘Buy’ and ‘Overweight’ ratings respectively. Corning has also seen more investors piling cash into the company as the number of funds holding shares went up to 44 from 42 during the fourth quarter of 2014, while the amount of capital invested by these funds surged to $1.29 billion from $926.04 million at the end of September. The specialty glass and ceramics company was added to the equity portfolio of Kerr Neilson’s Platinum Asset Management during the fourth quarter, the fund disclosing ownership of 6.11 million shares in its latest 13F filing. Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) has increased its fourth-quarter dividend to $0.12 from $0.10 and currently sports a yield of 2.21%.
Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB) has one of the strongest buyback programs of the lot, spending $12 billion to retire shares over the last four years, and has around $7.0 billion left under authorization. As the stock seems to be heading lower, losing 19% over the last 52 weeks and 9% since the beginning of the year, the buyback program is most likely to continue at the same aggressive pace. Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB) also pays a dividend of $0.33 and its dividend yield of 1.93% is the second largest from the media – diversified industry, being outrun only by World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE), which has a yield of 3.43%. Viacom, which is expected to generate 17.8% in total returns, is also highly appreciated by billionaires, being included in the equity portfolios of eight funds led by high net-worth managers, which held in aggregate $1.22 billion worth of stock. Among them is Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway holds 8.63 million shares of Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB) as of the end of 2014.
The last stock on our list is the energy company Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES), which according to Goldman, will generate a total yield of 17.7%. Similar to other oil & gas companies, Hess’ stock has been slumping since the middle of 2014 and the trend has continued into 2015, as the stock is down by 8% year-to-date. As investors have been reducing their exposure to the energy sector, the latest round of 13F filings revealed 37 funds among those that we track holding $2.21 billion worth of Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES)’s shares, versus 59 funds with $3.63 billion worth of stock a quarter earlier. Nevertheless, billionaire Paul Singer of Elliott Management still holds 17.80 million shares and the position is the largest in his fund’s equity portfolio. In addition, Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES) has the lowest dividend yield of all five stocks at 1.47%, the company paying a quarterly dividend of $0.25.
Disclosure: None
