Quick Read
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Verizon’s ~6% yield and 19% year-to-date gain make it the highest-yielding pick, while Home Depot has paid 156 consecutive quarterly dividends.
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Duke Energy beat Q1 EPS estimates for the fourth straight quarter and backs a $103 billion capital plan targeting steady earnings growth through 2030.
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Mid-June is when income-focused investors typically run a quiet portfolio audit: are the dividend checks still landing, is the yield still competitive and does each name hold up if the market wobbles into year-end? Three large-cap NYSE names — Verizon (NYSE:VZ), Home Depot (NYSE:HD) and Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) — keep showing up on that short list, and the recent data tells you why. Each one pairs a multi-decade payout track record with a defensive business model, which is exactly the profile retirees lean on when cash flow matters more than capital gains.
Motley Fool’s May 2026 coverage flagged all three as top retiree income picks, citing roughly a 6% yield on Verizon and double-digit-percent payout growth at Home Depot and Duke Energy over the past decade. The verified data backs up the framing.
Verizon (NYSE: VZ)
Verizon is the highest-yielding name in this group and the one with the clearest turnaround story attached. The dividend yield sits at roughly 6%, supported by a most recent declared quarterly payout of $0.7075 per share, paid on May 1, 2026. Shares trade around $46.71, up 19% year to date, against an analyst target price of $51.90.
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The bull case is straightforward. Q1 2026 adjusted EPS came in at $1.28, up 8% year over year, on revenue of $34.44 billion. Management raised full-year guidance to adjusted EPS of $4.95 to $4.99, implying 5% to 6% growth, alongside free cash flow of $21.5 billion or more. The closed Frontier acquisition pushed fiber broadband connections to about 10.8 million, up 42% year over year, and Verizon posted its first positive Q1 postpaid phone net adds since 2013. CEO Dan Schulman called the inflection plainly: “Our turnaround is not only progressing, it is gaining momentum.”
Risk: Total debt rose to $172.5 billion after Frontier, with interest expense up 19% year over year. Higher rates would extend the deleveraging timeline and pressure the payout cushion.
Home Depot (NYSE: HD)
Home Depot is the dividend-reliability anchor of this trio. The company has now paid 156 consecutive quarters of cash dividends, with the most recent quarterly payment of $2.33 per share, scheduled to hit accounts on June 18, 2026. The annualized rate of $9.32 compares with $2.76 a decade earlier in 2016, supporting the long-run payout growth claim. The current yield sits at roughly 2%, with shares at $336.59 and a trailing P/E of 24.