Billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Top Dividend Picks

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Next up is PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:PMT), which currently has a yield of 11.87% based on its $0.61 quarterly dividend. Despite shares falling over 25% from over $28.00 in early 2013, PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:PMT) has continued to regularly increase its dividends, from $0.57 at that time, to $0.59 at the start of 2014, to $0.61. Shares of the residential mortgage REIT were trending upwards in 2015 until a big earnings miss on February 4 sent them crashing down to earth. The company earned just $0.32 per share, down from $0.69 a year ago, and well below the estimates of $0.66.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:PMT)

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:PMT) had 18 funds invested in it at the end of the year, same as it did the previous quarter, while the funds’ invested capital was down slightly to $246.65 million from $277.78 million. Cooperman had a $60.79 million stake of 2.88 million shares accounting for nearly one-quarter of the total investment of all tracked funds, though he wasn’t the top shareholder; that honor went to Emanuel J. Friedman’s EJF Capital with 3.04 million shares valued at $64.09 million.

Lastly is Chimera Investment Corporation (NYSE:CIM), which sports a yield of 11.52% at current trading levels, based on its current quarterly dividend of $0.09. Nor is there any reason to suspect the current dividend payments will be going anywhere, anytime soon, as Chimera Investment Corporation (NYSE:CIM) has been paying out  $0.09 per share in dividends since the middle of 2012, when shares were trading nearly as low as $2.00 at one point.

Chimera Investment Corporation (NYSE:CIM) has in fact been paying out generous dividends since 2009, after shares crumbled following the 2008/2009 financial crisis. Cooperman first took a stake in the second quarter of 2012, and increased it massively over several quarters to become the largest shareholder among the funds that we track by the end of 2012, a position he has yet to relinquish. He did however slash his position by 23% during the fourth quarter of 2014, leaving him with 49.76 million shares. According to our data, Brian Taylor of Pine River Capital Management was the second largest shareholder after Cooperman, with ownership of 22.90 million shares.

Disclosure: None

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