Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO): First Eagle Investment Management’s +3% Yielders

The fund owned about 13 million shares of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) at the beginning of January. FirstEnergy is an electric utility operating on Ohio, West Virginia, and the mid-Atlantic U.S. As with many utilities, it has little exposure to macro conditions with a beta of 0.3, though the current dividend yield of nearly 5% is high even for the sector. As such it could be an interesting prospect for income or defensive investors. We would be a bit concerned, however, that the stock has been bid up to the point where it now trades at 25 times trailing earnings while revenue has actually been down.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) rounded out our list of dividend picks from First Eagle. A 19% decline in the stock price in the last year, as investors become more concerned about the future of the PC industry, has boosted the dividend yield to 4.2%. Net income has been down, partly due to small decreases on the top line, and the sell-side is actually expecting earnings to come in lower going forward as shown by the fact that the forward earnings multiple is a bit higher than the trailing P/E. Renaissance Technologies, founded by billionaire Jim Simons, was another major shareholder of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) (check out Renaissance’s stock picks).

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