6 Stocks Paying Reliable 6% Yields

Sitting on Consolidated Edison (ED) stock must be as exciting as watching batteries charge. An investor who bought at this time in 1985 has seen their stock price merely double, adjusted for a split. During that span, Americans learned to need the Internet, cellphones and $4 lattes, and the S&P 500 index, its recent tumble notwithstanding, rose fourfold.

Hold your pity. Old ConEd -- along with its predecessor companies it has traded on the New York Stock Exchange since Manhattan homes were lit with gas lamps -- has done something quietly provocative over the past few decades. It has increased its dividend payment each year. Calculated against the stock's perennially modest price, those payments have made for juicy yields, often double what the broad market was paying. As a result, the ConEd shareholder who has reinvested dividends since 1985 is up eightfold. Not so boring.

Electricity demand isn't terribly prone to a downturn in consumer spending. ConEd, which mostly transmits electricity, gas and steam for New Yorkers, is expected to increase sales this year and next, albeit by barely perceptible amounts. Shares have fallen year to date, but only half as far as the broad market -- about 21%. The dividend yield has swollen to 6%. Still, analysts aren't optimistic. Of 13 who cover the stock, just one recommends a purchase.

Odd, that. A 6% return, reinvested quarterly, doubles an investor's money in 12 years. Surely more than 1 in 13 forecasters consider such an outcome appealing -- unless, of course, they don't think it will occur. They might expect the share price to gradually fall, lessening the payoff to reinvesting. They might worry that ConEd will break its long streak of dividend increases with a cut.

The first concern is well founded. The stock price is 23% lower today than a decade ago, while S&P 500 fund investors have nearly broken even. But those big, reinvested dividends can hide a lot of flaws. With them, ConEd has returned 28% over the past decade.

As for a dividend cut, ConEd paid an affordable 44% of its profit out in dividends during the first three quarters of 2008. Profits have fallen of late on increased pension and infrastructure costs. Analysts expect New York's energy regulators to disallow much of a rate increase ConEd is currently seeking. Consensus estimates call for earnings per share to decline 12% this year and rebound 4% next year. Those numbers don't rule out a dividend cut, but nor do they give reason to expect one. The company's touting of its dividend record suggests it will do all it can to preserve it.

All told, investors who expect a long, cold period for consumer spending, and for all of the companies that depend on it -- stores, computer makers, restaurants and so on -- might consider collecting a 6% dividend tied to a needed good. ConEd isn't nearly the only company that offers such a yield right now. Below are five more whose payments, as far as I can see (which admittedly isn't all that far at the moment) seem safe.