Billionaires Like These Five Dividend Stocks

Let’s move on to healthcare, particularly Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA), whose stock sports a dividend yield of 2.36%, and which saw its popularity among the billionaires we track increase considerably during the fourth quarter. A total of 15 billionaires’ funds held shares of Teva heading into 2016, which compares to 10 funds a quarter earlier. The move comes amid a 19% growth registered by the stock between October and December and the funds in question amassed $4.75 billion worth of shares, considerably above the $2.42 billion figure held a quarter earlier. Two largest shareholders of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA) in our database are billionaires Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global and John Paulson’s Paulson & Co., which own 25.04 million shares and 20.41 million shares, respectively.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA) pays a dividend of $0.34 per share and at 9.3 times forward earnings, the stock looks attractive. More importantly, Teva is in the process of acquiring the generic business from Allergan in a $40.5 billion deal that would create one of the largest generic drugs companies worldwide. This would allow Teva to be more competitive and if the management commits to returning more capital to shareholders, it is likely that the company will further raise the dividend like it has been doing for the last several years.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is the only company in this list that registered a slight decline in popularity among the billionaires we follow. At the end of December, 17 funds held shares of the tech giant, versus 18 funds a quarter earlier. As we stated in a previous article, the total number of funds from our database with long positions in Apple stayed unchanged at 133 during the fourth quarter, but the stock fell several spots in our ranking of the most popular stocks (read more details here).  Apple’s stock has lost nearly 26% in the last 52 weeks and with the company paying a dividend of $0.52 per share, the stock currently sports a dividend yield of 2.15%.

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Trading at a forward P/E of 9.5, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s stock seems very cheap, although one of the reasons for its undervaluation is the company’s dependency on a single product – the iPhone, which might soon find itself in a more competitive and oversaturated market. Nevertheless, at the moment Apple has a strong balance sheet and a considerable amount of cash that it can use for stock buybacks and dividends, which is why Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is considered a good short to medium-term investment. Meanwhile, billionaire Carl Icahn‘s Icahn Capital trimmed its position in Apple by 14% during the fourth quarter and owns 45.76 million shares as of the end of 2015. Other billionaires bullish on the stock are Ken Fisher, Chase Coleman and David Einhorn.