15 Great Stocks with Great Yield

With markets rattling and whipsawing in a very volatile manner and the 10-year yield falling to post-WWII lows, investors may hunt for the safety of high-yielding dividend stocks. However, be warned, for some stocks, they only have high yields due to the fact that the stock price has been beaten down.

For example, the Wisdomtree Dividend ex-Financials Fund (NYSE: DTN) include Frontier Communications (NASDAQ: FTR) as its top holding, even though it is within 70 cents of its 52-week low.

Thus, investors should look at stocks that have yield and are trading near their 52-week highs, showing strong performance and a commitment to dividends; if companies don't increase the dividend, then the yield will fall, so companies that have high yields and are trading near highs are growing dividends to maintain that yield.

This is what investors should look for. So without further ado, here are 15 dividend-paying stocks to look at, excluding financials.

1) AT&T (NYSE: T): yield=5.14%, within .7% of 52-week high

2) Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK): yield=4.55%, within 2.29% of 52-week high

3) Kimberly Clark (NYSE: KMB): yield=3.72%, within 2.79% of 52-week high

4) Verizon (NYSE: VZ): yield=4.81%, within 3.51% of 52-week high

5) Altria Group (NYSE: MO): yield=5.09%, within 4.14% of 52-week high

6) Reynolds American (NYSE: RAI): yield=5.62%, within 7.55% of 52-week high

7) Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT): yield=3.3%, within 7.81% of 52-week high

8) Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY): yield=4.78%, within 12.32% of 52-week high

9) Home Depot (NYSE: HD): yield=2.35%, within 13.94% of 52-week high

10) First Energy (NYSE: FE): yield=4.7%, within 14.36% of 52-week high

11) Illinois Toolworks (NYSE: ITW): yield=2.56%, within 14.89% of 52-week high