"Our dividend is important to our investors and it remains a top priority for us. Our objective continues to be a dividend payout ratio target of approximately 80% of adjusted diluted EPS." Mr. Gifford has been true to his word. Two weeks ago, Altria's board declared a quarterly cash dividend of 86 cents per share. That works out to a forward annual dividend yield of 8.2% at a share price of $42. The company is guiding for full-year adjusted/diluted EPS of at least $4.30. At an 80% payout ratio, that means there should be no risk of a dividend cut during the first quarter of 2021. Iron Mountain Another unlikely beneficiary of COVID-19 is real estate investment trust (REIT) Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM). That's because most REITs own office buildings or residential property. Many of those assets have been negatively impacted by the spike in small business closings and unemployment brought on by the pandemic. But not so Iron Mountain, which specializes in highly secure storage facilities. The types of property stored in those facilities, such as priceless works of art and fragile historical documents, can't be safely kept anywhere else. Iron Mountain recently converted some of its facilities to data storage. Although records management still constitutes a majority of Iron Mountain's storage revenue at 72% of income, data management and digital solutions contribute 22% of its sales. As Iron Mountain's data management and digital solutions revenues expand, so does its operating margin. In 2019, Iron Mountain's total adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margin was 33.7%, a 13% improvement over its 29.7% margin five years prior. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic greatly increasing demand for cloud services, that figure is likely to make another jump over the next five years. Since Iron Mountain is a REIT, by law it must pay out at least 90% of its net operating income to avoid corporate income taxation. Iron Mountain's most recent quarterly cash distribution of $0.6185 per share equates to a forward annual yield of 8.25% at a unit price of $30. Enterprise Products Partners The energy sector took a beating in 2020, in large part due to the coronavirus pandemic. Demand for gasoline plunged during the first half of the year as many workers stopped commuting into the office. As a result, energy stocks were the worst-performing sector of the S&P 500 Index in 2020, down more than 30%. Read This Story: The Top Energy Stories of 2020 It wasn't just oil producers that took a hit. Less demand for gasoline means less crude oil and natural gas moving through pipelines. With 50,000 miles of pipeline crisscrossing North America, Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD) is arguably the MLP that would be most affected by changes in demand for those services. Not necessarily. Through the first five months of 2020, U.S. waterborne crude oil exports were 24% higher than in 2019. That's good news for EPD, whose pipeline network feeds all of the major oil export terminals on the Gulf of Mexico. For that reason, the company's distributable cash flow was higher over the first nine months of 2020 versus 2019. And since distributions are based on distributable cash flow, EPD actually increased its Q3 quarterly distribution slightly in 2020 to $0.445 per share. That works out to an 8.9% yield at a unit price of $20. Looking for growth? An 8% return is great for income investors, but maybe you're more interested in growth. If so, consider the investment opportunities from the global roll-out of 5G (fifth generation) wireless technology. Without the ultra-fast bandwidth of 5G wireless, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things wouldn't be able to reach their full potential. We've pinpointed a company that's a crucial player in 5G. In fact, this company's proprietary technology allows 5G to properly function. Largely ignored by Wall Street, this high-tech firm is a hidden gem and the time to buy shares is now. Click here for details. | 
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