Jim Cramer, founder of TheStreet, once coined the term “accidental high yielder,” which means simply that a stock that has fallen so much that the yield versus earnings has become increasingly attractive. Companies have options for their cash flows, that would be pay a dividend, buy back shares or simply reinvest in the business and retain those earnings (rather than paying them out). Cramer knew that fundamentally sound companies were being temporarily punished but at the same time they became attractive to another style of investor — the dividend player or the value player.
Mosaic ($MOS) fits the bill here, sporting a 4.5% to 4.9% yield now as the stock has fallen to levels not seen since 2020! It’s a nice catch here. That seems hard to believe but fertilizer companies are the furthest thing from AI that you can imagine. Hence, the stock is not showing all that much growth here. High energy prices used to be a big thing for the fertilizers, but apparently this time around, it’s not happening. How strong is the Mosaic dividend? Demand for fertilizer still seems strong though pricing is a challenge, customers are still buying but input prices are rising, too. Cash flows are strong, I do not think this payout is in jeopardy.
Cargill created Mosaic in 2004 and spun off its shares in 2011, so this company is on its own these days. But with a strong yield even as the stock is down hard it may pay to wait, the stock can be volatile but at a five-year low it seems to be a low risk entry point.
At the time of publication, Lang was long MOS.
