In this article, we discuss the 5 best dividend stocks to buy according to Diamond Hill Capital. If you want to read our detailed analysis of the hedge fund’s performance and investment strategy, go directly to the 10 Best Dividend Stocks to Buy According to Diamond Hill Capital.
5. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)
Diamond Hill Capital’s Stake Value: $477,807,000
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is a multinational pharmaceutical and biotech company headquartered in New York. On June 23, the company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.40 per share, in line with its previous dividend. The company maintains a 12-year streak of consistent dividend growth, becoming one of the best dividend stocks in Diamond Hill’s portfolio. As of August 31, the stock’s yield came in at 3.49%.
Diamond Hill Capital started investing in Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) during the fourth quarter of 2010, owning shares worth over $194 million. In Q2 2022, the hedge fund owned over 9 million PFE shares with a total value of $478 million. The company represented 2.08% of the fund’s portfolio.
At the end of Q2, 70 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey owned stakes in Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), down from 79 in the previous quarter. The total value of those stakes was over $2.8 billion. Ken Griffin and Cliff Asness were some of the company’s major stakeholders in Q2.
ClearBridge Investments mentioned Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) in its Q4 2021 investor letter. Here is what the firm had to say:
“While the level of general turnover abated as we progressed through 2021, it remained high in one area: post-COVID-19 recovery plays. The concept behind this investment thesis was, and still is, straightforward: with the advent of effective vaccines, the path from pandemic to endemic is just a matter of time. As this transition occurs, the estimated excess savings of over $2 trillion built up on U.S. consumer balance sheets will unlock dramatic pent-up demand for experiences, especially global travel. This investment case seemed especially compelling when the Pfizer vaccine positively surprised markets in November 2020. As a result, we made post-COVID-19 stocks (which were trading well below our estimate of recovery value) a sizable theme within the portfolio. We understood this to be a more aggressive tilt in positioning because it required a major improvement in demand to catalyze fundamentals and drive price toward higher business values. While we accepted that recovery would not be smooth and that it would take time to deploy vaccines both domestically and globally, we decided that recovery was the logical path of least resistance and we were being well compensated for these risks. (Click here for the full text)
