Best High Dividend Stocks To Buy Right Now

A recent article on Benzinga detailed how to use sniper tactics to buy stocks when the dividend yields are higher.

The method involved setting a dividend yield as the target, and then buying at that price. From that, the stock has a lower price and a higher dividend yield.

There are many blue chip stocks with high dividends and high betas such as BP PLC (NYSE: BP), the major oil firm, and Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) -- the world's largest heavy equipment maker and a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Another one to consider is Cohen & Steers Inc (NYSE: CNS), an asset manager based in New York City.

Top 5 Mid Cap Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Plains Exploration & Production Company(PXP)

Plains Exploration & Production Company, an independent oil and gas company, primarily engages in acquiring, developing, exploring, and producing oil and gas in California, Texas, and Louisiana. It owns oil and gas properties with principal operations in onshore California; offshore California; the Gulf Coast region, including Haynesville Shale, Eagle Ford Shale, and south and east Texas; the Mid-Continent region; and the Rocky Mountains. As of December 31, 2010, the company had estimated proved reserves of 416.1 million barrels of oil equivalent. Plains Exploration & Production Company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By David Smith]

  The pending purchases
  Aside from its current core metals operations, Freeport is in the process of acquiring a pair of independent oil and gas producers, Plains Exploration & Production (NYSE: PXP  ) and McMoRan Exploration (NYSE: MMR  ) . In December, Freeport announced that it would pay 0.6531 shares of its common stock and $25 in cash for each outstanding share of Plains. In addition, for McMoRan it stated that it would pay $14.75 in cash and 1.15 units of a royalty trust that will hold a 5% overriding royalty interest in McMoRan's shallow water and ultra-deepwater prospects.

• [By Rich Duprey]

  Gold and copper miner�Freeport-McMoRan� (NYSE: FCX  ) has completed its acquisition of Plains Exploration & Production (NYSE: PXP  ) and, as previously planned, the board of directors says it will pay investors a supplemental dividend of $1.00 per share that is in addition to the regular quarterly payout of $0.3125 per share.

Best High Dividend Stocks To Buy Right Now: Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI)

Gannett Co., Inc. operates as a media and marketing solutions company in the United States and internationally. Its Publishing segment publishes 83 U.S. daily newspapers with affiliated online sites, including USA TODAY, a national, general-interest daily newspaper; USATODAY.com; USA WEEKEND, a magazine supplement for newspapers; Clipper Magazine, a direct mail advertising magazine; bi-weekly Nursing Spectrum and NurseWeek periodicals; and military and defense newspapers. This segment also includes 17 paid-for daily newspapers; approximately 200 weekly newspapers, magazines, and trade publications; and approximately 600 non-daily publications, as well as involves in commercial printing, newswire, marketing, and data services operations. The company?s Digital segment owns and operates CareerBuilder, an employment Web site, which offers online recruitment and career advancement services for employers, employees, recruiters, and job seekers; ShopLocal, which provides multicha nnel shopping and advertising services; Planet Discover, which offers hosted search and advertising services; PointRoll, which provides digital marketing services and technology; and Schedule Star, which offers scheduling solution for high school athletic departments. Its Broadcasting segment operates 23 television stations and affiliated Web sites, which produce local programming, such as news, sports, and entertainment programming. This segment also includes Captivate Network, a national news and entertainment network that delivers programming and full-motion video advertising on video screens located in elevators of office towers and select hotel lobbies in North America. The company has strategic business relationships with online affiliates, including Classified Ventures, ShopLocal.com, Topix, and Metromix LLC, as well as strategic marketing agreement with Microsoft. Gannett Co., Inc. was founded in 1906 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Duprey]

  Here's something no one ever said: We don't see enough daily sports coverage, so we need a new website dedicated to cover it.�Yet USA Today, the�Gannett� (NYSE: GCI  ) newspaper dedicated to giving you national news in bite-size snippets and graphics, is launching a new website dedicated to just that. Calling it "For The Win," it expects the new division to attract fans inside and out of sports.

• [By The Part-time Investor]

  The following stocks met the criteria in January of 2008 and were put into the initial portfolio:

  Abbot Labs (ABT)Advanced data processing (ADP)Associated Banc-Corp (ASBC)Bank of America (BAC)BB&T Corp. (BBT)Bemis Company (BMS)Anheuser Busch (BUD)The Chubb Corporation (CB)Clorox (CLX)Comerica Inc. (CMA)Diebold Inc. (DBD)Emerson Electronics (EMR)First Dollar Corp. (FDO)First Third BanCorp. (FITB)Gannett Co, Inc. (GCI)General Electric (GE)Hershey (HSY)Illinois Tools Works (ITW)Johnson and Johnson (JNJ)Leggett and Platt (LEG)Eli Lilly (LLY)La-Z-Boy (LZB)McDonald's (MCD)Marsh and Ilsley (MI)M&T Bancorp (MTB)PepsiCo (PEP)Pfizer (PFE)Procter & Gamble (PG)Pentair Ltd. (PNR)Regions Financial Corp. (RF)Rohm and Haas (ROH)RPM International (RPM)Sherwin Williams (SHW)Sysco Corp. (SYY)UDR Inc. (UDR)

  Historical quotes were taken from Yahoo Finance. $10,000 was put into each position, to the nearest whole share, so a total of $349,262.89 was invested. From 1/15/08 through 5/16/13 all dividends were reinvested back into the stock that paid them. If a dividend cut was announced, that stock was sold on the ex-div date of the new, lower dividend.

Best High Dividend Stocks To Buy Right Now: SanDisk Corporation(SNDK)

Sandisk Corporation designs, develops, and manufactures NAND flash memory storage solutions that are used in various consumer electronics products. The company offers removable cards under the SanDisk Ultra, SanDisk Extreme, and SanDisk Extreme PRO brands; embedded products under the iNAND brand; universal serial bus (USB) flash drives under the Cruzer brand; digital media players under the Sansa brand; solid state drives under the Lightning brand; and wafers and memory components. Its removable card products are used in a range of consumer electronics devices, including mobile phones, digital cameras, gaming devices, and laptop computers; and embedded flash products are used in mobile phones, tablets, ultrabooks, eReaders, global positioning system devices, gaming systems, imaging devices, and computing platforms. The company also provides high-capacity storage solutions, such as solid-state drives that are used in lieu of hard disk drives. It offers its products to the m obile phone, consumer electronics, and computing end markets through original equipment manufacturers, distributors, and retail sales channels in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Japan. The company was formerly known as SunDisk Corporation and changed its name to SanDisk Corporation in August 1995. SanDisk Corporation was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Milpitas, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jesse Solomon]

  The latest deals include medical device maker Medtronic's (MDT) $42.9 billion acquisition of rival Coviden (COV), telecom giant Level 3 Communications' (LVLT) $5.7 billion purchase of tw telecom (TWTC), Williams Companies (WMB)' $6 billion controlling stake in natural gas driller Access Midstream Partners (ACMP), and SanDisk's (SNDK) $1.1 billion takeover of flash technology company Fusion-io (FIO).

• [By Benjamin Pimentel]

  Shares of Intel Corp. (INTC) , Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) �and SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) �also posted gains.

• [By John Divine]

  Flash memory producer SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK  ) committed a cardinal sin yesterday, announcing that it probably wouldn't be able to fill all its orders this year --�voluntarily. This blase philosophy -- in which SanDisk won't pay for more facilities to meet rising demand for its own product -- put an effective cap on its sales growth going forward, and the stock took a 6.6% shellacking because of it.�

• [By Laura Brodbeck]

  Stocks moving in the pre-market included:

  Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) gained 0.91 percent in pre-market trade ahead of the company�� earnings reports. SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) gained 0.08 percent in pre-market trade after a week of choppy trading.

  Earnings

Best High Dividend Stocks To Buy Right Now: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc(TMO)

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. provides analytical instruments, equipment, reagents and consumables, software, and services for research, manufacture, analysis, discovery, and diagnostics. Its Analytical Technologies segment offers analytical instruments to analyze prepared samples, software interpretation tools, laboratory information management systems, and laboratory automation systems; environmental instruments and integrated systems for environmental monitoring, safety, and security applications; and process instruments, integrated systems, and measurement solutions. It also provides diagnostics products used in healthcare laboratories to prepare and analyze patient samples; and biosciences products comprising reagents and consumables used in life science research, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical production. The company?s Laboratory Products and Services segment offers laboratory equipment, including sample preparation, environment storage and handling equipment, and laboratory workstations; laboratory consumables; research market solutions consisting of chemicals, instruments and apparatus, liquid handling pumps and devices, and capital equipment and consumables; and healthcare market products comprising analytical equipment, diagnostic tools, and reagents and consumables. It also provides workplace and first responder equipment, protective gear, and apparel; and packaging, warehousing, distribution, labeling, pharmaceutical and biospecimen storage, and analytical laboratory services in the area of drug discovery and pharmaceutical clinical trials. The company serves pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions, government agencies, and environmental and industrial process control settings primarily in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Sean Williams]

  Two names worth considering here are Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO  ) and Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN  ) . Thermo Fisher makes the list as it's in the process of purchasing Life Technologies (NASDAQ: LIFE  ) for $13.6 billion. In early 2012, Life Technologies introduced the Benchtop Ion Proton Sequencer, which is capable of delivering same-day genome results for just $1,000! Illumina, on the other hand, has researchers' bases covered from all ends. It offers four high-end sequencing machines, a lower-priced sequencer (MiSeq), and can handle cloud-based data to formulate decoding. These two companies could be the cornerstone of nCoV research!

• [By Tess Stynes]

  General Electric Co.'s(GE) healthcare unit agreed to acquire several of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.'s(TMO) life-sciences businesses for roughly $1.06 billion.

• [By Tom Rojas and Maria Armental var popups = dojo.query(".socialByline .popC"); ]

  Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.'s(TMO) second-quarter revenue jumped 33% and its adjusted profit rose as the company benefited from its recent acquisition of Life Technologies. The company also raised its full-year per-share earnings estimate. Shares gained 2.4% to $125.97 premarket.

Best High Dividend Stocks To Buy Right Now: ISA Internationale Inc (ISAT)

ISA Internationale Inc. (ISAI),), incorporated on June 2, 1989, is a business development company. The Company�� business is to acquire relationships with the business community to develop into client companies that can lead to consulting contracts and the providing of services to assist American client companies in complying with the reporting requirements to the government and in communicating with shareholders, customers and the public and the accessing of needed growth capital.

The Company also did use third party agencies and attorneys to collect its portfolios. The Company is in the process of changing its business plan of operation. As of September 30, 2012, the Company has not generated and sales and gross profit from any of its new operations as a Business Development Company. The Company is seeking additional sources of debt financing other than additional convertible notes payable issued by a related party.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tom Stoukas]

  Inmarsat Plc (ISAT) gained 5.4 percent to 732.5 pence. Morgan Stanley upgraded the world�� biggest supplier of maritime satellite services to overweight from equal weight, meaning that investors should hold more of the shares than are represented in benchmark indexes. Morgan Stanley said the outlook for the company�� core business has improved.

Best High Dividend Stocks To Buy Right Now: SM Energy Co (SM)

SM Energy Company (SM Energy), incorporated in 1915, is an independent energy company. The Company is engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (referred to as oil, gas, and NGLs) in onshore North America. The Company�� operations are focused on five operating areas in the onshore United States. In December 2011, the Company closed on its acquisition and development agreement with Mitsui E&P Texas LP (Mitsui), an indirect subsidiary of Mitsui & Co. Ltd., which transferred 12.5% of its working interest in certain non-operated oil and gas assets in South Texas. In August 2011, the Company sold approximately 15,400 net operated acres in LaSalle and Dimmit Counties, Texas to Talisman Energy USA Inc. and Statoil Texas Onshore Properties LLC (collectively, Talisman/Statoil). In June 2011, the Company completed the divestiture of certain assets located in its Mid-Continent region. In January 2011, it completed the divestiture of certain assets located in its Rocky Mountain region. In December 2013, SM Energy Co announced that it had closed its previously announced Anadarko Basin divestiture package.

As of December 31, 2011, the Company had working interests in 1,353 gross (741 net) productive oil wells and 2,928 gross (1,060 net) productive gas wells. All of its drilling activities are conducted using independent drilling contractors. As of December 31, 2011, it had 415.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent of proved undeveloped reserves.

South Texas & Gulf Coast Region

Operations for the South Texas & Gulf Coast region are managed from its office in Houston, Texas. The Company�� operations in South Texas & Gulf Coast Region focus primarily on its Eagle Ford shale program. Its acreage position covers a portion of the western Eagle Ford shale play, including acreage in the oil, the NGL-gas, and the dry gas windows of the play. During the year ended December 31, 2011, it had approx! imately 250,000 net acres in the play, which consisted of an approximate 165,000 net acre operated position in Webb, Dimmit, and LaSalle Counties, Texas and an approximate 85,000 net acre non-operated position in Maverick, Dimmit, LaSalle, and Webb Counties, Texas. As of December 31, 2011, it had approximately 196,000 net acres in the play. During 2011, the production was 69.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent.

Rocky Mountain Region

Operations for the Company�� Rocky Mountain region are managed from its office in Billings, Montana. During 2011, the Company focused on Bakken/Three Forks formations in the North Dakota portion of the Williston Basin, where it had approximately 87,000 net acres.

Mid-Continent Region

Operations for the Company�� Mid-Continent region are managed from its office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Company�� operations in the Mid-Continent region are primarily focused on the horizontal development of the Granite Wash formation in western Oklahoma. Its Mid-Continent region also manages its Woodford shale assets. In 2011, its Mid-Continent region's production was 31.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent. Proved reserves during 2011 were 234.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent.

ArkLaTex Region

The Company�� focus on the ArkLaTex region has been the horizontal development of its Haynesville shale acreage. In 2011, production in its ArkLaTex region was 30.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent.

Permian Region

Operations for the Company�� Permian region are managed from its office in Midland, Texas. The Company�� Permian region covers western Texas and eastern New Mexico. Its primary area of development focus in this region is the Wolfberry tight oil play. During 2011, the region�� production was 11.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Emma O��rien]

  SM Investments Corp. (SM), the holding company of Philippine billionaire Henry Sy, declined 7.7 percent to 805.50 pesos in Manila. The stock�� weighting was cut in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, according to Societe Generale SA.

• [By Tyler Crowe]

  Who's doing it the best?
  It can be pretty handy to evaluate the entire industry on how efficiently it's replacing reserves, but reserve replacement costs can be more effective in evaluating individual companies. The lower the costs, the better it is. According to Ernst & Young, the most effective company at controlling reserve replacement costs is private company�Antero Resources, with a three-year average reserve replacement cost of about $2.88 per barrel of oil equivalent. Antero, and four of the other top five companies on Ernst & Young's list, are almost pure natural gas plays. If we've learned one thing over the past couple of years, it's that oil reserves and natural gas reserves are two totally different things when it comes to value. The five following companies have more than 50% liquids on�their�reserves and had the lowest reserve replacement costs for 2012.

  Company % Liquids in�Portfolio Oil Production Replacement Rate (3 Years) Reserve Replacement Costs (3-Year Average) Per boe Rosetta Resources� (NASDAQ: ROSE  ) 57% 846% $6.99 Continental Resources� (NYSE: CLR  ) 72% 827% $12.61 Laredo Petroleum� (NYSE: LPI  ) 52% 1,042% $13.51 SM Energy� (NYSE: SM  ) 53% 392% $14.67 SandRidge Energy� (NYSE: SD  ) 58% 704% $14.85

  Sources: Ernst & Young and S&P Capital IQ; author's calculations.

• [By Grace L. Williams]

  A pair of insiders at SM Energy (SM) also caught our eye. General Counsel David Copeland bought 3,500 shares for $252,400 and President and COO Javan Ottoson conducted his first transaction and bought 1,000 shares for $71,900. InsiderScore notes: