This is a guest contribution by Bob Ciura of Sure Dividend. Sure Dividend helps individual investors build high quality dividend growth portfolios for the long run.
With most stocks distributing dividends quarterly, investors needing predictable monthly cash flow could desire more frequent payouts. This is where monthly dividend stocks come in. Monthly dividend stocks pay shareholders a dividend each month, for 12 total payments per year.
Investors can even find high yields above 4% from monthly dividend stocks. This article will discuss 3 of the high yield monthly dividend stocks that are flying under the radar of most income investors.
STAG Industrial (STAG)
STAG Industrial is an owner and operator of industrial real estate. It is focused on single-tenant industrial properties and has 563 buildings across 41 states in the United States. It executes a deep quantitative and qualitative analysis on its tenants.
As a result, it has incurred credit losses that have been less than 0.1% of its revenues since its IPO. According to the latest data, 53% of the tenants are publicly rated and 31% of the tenants are rated “investment grade.” The company typically does business with established tenants to reduce risk.
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In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, core FFO per share grew 3% over the prior year’s first quarter, from $0.59 to $0.61, exceeding the analysts’ consensus by $0.01, thanks to the sustained strength of the REIT’s tenants and hikes in rent rates. Net operating income grew 8% over the prior year’s quarter even though the occupancy rate dipped sequentially from 96.5% to 95.9%.
STAG Industrial has grown its FFO per share at a 6.0% average annual rate over the last decade and at a 5.5% average annual rate over the last five years. The U.S. industrial market is more than $1 trillion in size and STAG Industrial still has a market share that is less than 1% of its target market, which includes the top 60 markets of the country. Therefore, the REIT has ample room to continue to grow for years.
STAG Industrial has a well-laddered lease maturity schedule, with a weighted average lease term of 5 years. Thus, the cash flows of the REIT can be considered fairly reliable under normal business conditions. STAG Industrial is one of the few REITs that pay dividends on a monthly (instead of a quarterly) basis – a valuable characteristic for income investors.
STAG currently yields 4.1%.
Realty Income (O)
Realty Income is a retail-focused REIT that owns retail properties that are not part of a wider retail development (such as a mall), but instead are stand-alone properties. This means that the properties are viable for many different tenants, including government services, healthcare services, and entertainment.
Realty Income’s diversified portfolio comprises over 15,000 commercial properties across eight countries, with 79.9% in retail, 14.4% in industrial, 3.2% in gaming, and 2.5% in other sectors. Geographically, 84.6% of annualized base rent originates from the United States, 12.6% from the United Kingdom, and 2.8% from continental Europe.
In the 2025 first quarter, the company achieved total revenue of $1.38 billion, surpassing analyst expectations of $1.27 billion. Net income available to common stockholders was $249.8 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, compared to $129.7 million, or $0.16 per share, in the same quarter of the previous year. Funds from Operations (FFO) per share increased to $1.05 from $0.94, while Adjusted Funds from Operations (AFFO) per share rose to $1.06 from $1.03, reflecting a 2.9% year-over-year growth.
Future growth will be driven organically through rent increases, as well as externally through new property acquisitions. In the most recent quarter, Realty Income invested $1.4 billion across 194 properties, achieving an initial weighted average cash yield of 7.5%, with $893 million deployed in Europe at a 7.0% yield and $479 million in the U.S. at an 8.3% yield.
The company’s portfolio remained robust, with a quarter-end occupancy rate of 98.5% and a rent recapture rate of 103.9%. The company maintained its full-year 2025 AFFO per share guidance of $4.22 to $4.28.
Realty Income pays out around 75% of its funds-from-operations to its owners in the form of dividends. Realty Income’s most important competitive advantage is its world-class management team that has successfully guided the trust in the past. Management is highly adept at finding attractive investment opportunities while also growing rents from existing properties, which has been very profitable for its shareholders.
The company has increased its dividend for 28 consecutive years. Shares currently yield 5.5%.
Main Street Capital (MAIN)
Main Street Capital Corporation is a Business Development Company, or BDC, that provides long-term debt and equity capital to lower middle market companies and debt capital to middle market companies. Main Street defines lower middle market companies as generally having annual revenues between $10 million and $150 million.
The company’s investments typically support management buyouts, recapitalizations, growth financings, refinancing, and acquisitions. It generated $355 million in net investment income in 2024. At the end of Q1 2025, Main Street had an interest in 86 lower middle market companies (valued at $2.6 billion), 13 middle market companies ($128 million) and 90 private loan investments ($1.9 billion).
In the 2025 first quarter, net investment income of $89.8 million for the quarter was flat compared to $89.8 million in Q1 2024. The corporation generated net investment income per share of $1.01, down 4% year-over-year from $1.05 per share. Distributable net investment income per share totaled $1.07,
down 4% from $1.11 in Q1 2024.
Main Street’s net asset value per share increased 1.2% since December 31st, 2024, from $31.65 to $32.03. As of the end of the first quarter of 2025, the corporation had aggregate liquidity of $1.302 billion, consisting of $109 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $1.193 billion of unused capacity under the revolving credit facility.
Main Street has put together a solid record in the past decade, with a nine-year and five-year net investment income per share CAGR of 7.2% and 10.3%, respectively. It is a unique BDC, in that it pays a supplemental dividend in addition to its regular monthly dividends. The corporation declared monthly dividends of $0.255 to be paid in the third quarter of 2025, which are 4.1% higher than those declared a year ago, as well as a supplemental $0.30 dividend to be paid in June.
MAIN stock currently yields 4.7%.
Disclosure: No positions in any stocks mentioned
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