Dividend yield is a commonly used metric for finding dividend stocks to buy and hold. The dividend yield is the amount of a company’s dividend as a percentage of its stock price. Since a company’s stock price can fluctuate every day, so will the dividend yield. However, because many of these are mature companies, investors don’t expect wide swings in a company’s dividend yield.
Another shared trait of dividend stocks that are built for the long haul is a strong balance sheet. Investors can measure that by looking at the company’s debt-to-equity ratio, which measures a company’s level of debt in relation to the overall value of its stock.
