I’ve got a number of FTSE 100 stocks piling up on my watchlist and I can’t wait to add them to my portfolio. The problem is that my resources are limited, and I can only buy so many at any given moment.
But here are two top dividend stocks I would buy today if I had the cash.
I wish I could buy these FTSE 100 shares
I can’t track every stock on the FTSE 100 and I haven’t paid insurer Admiral Group (LSE: ADM) much attention for years. Its 7.3% yield has just caught me eye, and I’m wondering if it deserves more of my attention.
Its share price has rallied since mid-October along with the rest of the FTSE 100, but measured over one year it is down 29.84%. Over the same period, the index fell just 3.2%.
Admiral’s share price was sunk by a large drop in first-half pre-tax profits last year, down a thumping 48% to £251.3m. It wasn’t alone. Rivals including Direct Line were also hit by claims inflation, as car repair costs and mechanic wages rose amid post-pandemic labour shortages.
However, last year’s figures were also made to look worse by Covid comparatives, as claims costs dropped with fewer motorists on the road during lockdown.
Inflation remains a problem and motor insurance is a competitive market where average premium income per customer has been squeezed. Yet these challenges are reflected in Admiral’s underpowered valuation of 11.1 times earnings. The yield is set to dip to 6% next year with cover thin at 1.1, but I would still buy it today if I had the cash.
I’d buy this top dividend stock too
I like buying cheap FTSE 100 companies with generous yields and here’s another one, fund manager M&G (LSE: MNG). The savings and investment company is both an asset manager for wholesale and institutional clients, and a retail savings specialist for private investors.
It was spun off from Prudential in October 2019 and its share price has recovered steadily since the March 2020 Covid market sell-off, which came soon after its launch.
The M&G share price is up a healthy 19.15% over three months, and 5.11% over one year. That looks pretty solid to me, given the turbulent time markets have been through lately. It’s worth noting that another FTSE 100 fund manager, Schroders, is trading 20% lower than it was a year ago.
I can see why investors might be keen to hold onto a stock that yields a whopping 9.1%, as M&G does today. It’s sitting on plenty of surplus capital and has a strong solvency ratio of 235%, while broker Jefferies recently noted that “its free cash flow yield of 15-17% during 2023-25 should maintain M&G’s track record of delivering best-in-class capital returns”.
M&G is at the start of what I hope will be a long and successful journey, and I would have bought it before if I’d had the cash. With luck, I soon will.
