Key Takeaways
- A $750,000 portfolio split evenly across ONEOK, Clorox and Kimberly-Clark pays about $35,500 a year in dividends at today’s prices, or about $2,960 a month.
- ONEOK’s dividend is the best covered of the three, with distributable cash flow at 2.25x its dividend in fiscal 2025 and guidance raised three times this year.
- Clorox paid out 133% of its free cash flow in dividends over the twelve months to Sept. 30, 2026, and Kimberly-Clark just took on new debt and shares to buy Kenvue.
- If Clorox halved its dividend, the portfolio’s income would fall to about $29,600 a year, and if it stopped paying, to about $23,800.
Three stocks yielding close to 5% apiece can go a long way toward a retirement paycheck.
Take a hypothetical retiree who splits $750,000 evenly across ONEOK (OKE), Clorox (CLX) and Kimberly-Clark (KMB). At today’s prices, $250,000 buys about 2,860 shares of ONEOK, about 2,340 of Clorox and about 2,260 of Kimberly-Clark.
Those dividend checks add up to about $35,500 a year, or about $2,960 a month. That’s a 4.7% yield on this part of the portfolio. (Of course, no one should ever own just three stocks.)
Here’s what each pays, and how well its cash covers it:
| Stock | Shares | Cost | Dividends a year | Share of income | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ONEOK | 2,862 | $249,938 | $12,249 | 35% | 2.25x distributable cash flow |
| Clorox | 2,339 | $249,922 | $11,695 | 33% | 133% of free cash flow |
| Kimberly-Clark | 2,255 | $249,899 | $11,546 | 33% | 87% of free cash flow |
| Total | $35,490 | 100% |
Source: TIKR, at today’s prices, with dividends at each company’s current annual rate. Coverage is ONEOK’s distributable cash flow coverage for fiscal 2025, and Clorox’s and Kimberly-Clark’s cash dividend payout ratios for the twelve months to Sept. 30, 2026.
6 safe dividend stocks paying retirees 6%+ yields
There are over 100 stocks paying 6%+ annual dividends today.
But after an extensive investment review leveraging TIKR’s proprietary data, we now believe only six of them are truly safe for retirees.
They’re all yours for free as part of our new investment report, which you can access right here.
ONEOK’s check has the most cushion
Third-quarter adjusted EBITDA rose 6% to $2.24 billion on record Permian volumes, and on Oct. 27 ONEOK raised its 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance for the third time this year, to $8.5 billion to $8.6 billion.
As a pipeline, ONEOK is judged on distributable cash flow coverage. Its distributable cash flow per share nearly tripled from fiscal 2016 to fiscal 2025, while its dividend rose from $2.46 to $4.12:
That put fiscal 2025’s coverage at 2.25x ($9.25 a share against $4.12), and analysts expect 2.30x for 2026. ONEOK also paid off nearly $5.5 billion of debt in September, and S&P and Fitch upgraded it to BBB+ from BBB on Oct. 19. With the dividend covered more than twice, it can pay down debt and fund the dividend at the same time. The risk is that it needs producers to keep drilling.
Clorox is paying out more than its free cash flow
Clorox’s sales jumped 33% to $1.91 billion in its fiscal first quarter, ended Sept. 30, 2026, helped by its GOJO acquisition. But gross margin fell 130 basis points to 40.4% on higher commodity, manufacturing and logistics costs, and Clorox now expects adjusted EPS nearer the low end of its $5.70-$6.00 guidance.
Over the twelve months to Sept. 30, 2026, Clorox paid $602 million in dividends against $453 million of free cash flow, a risky 133% cash dividend payout ratio. Free cash flow fell short of the dividend in three of the last five fiscal years, after covering it easily before that:
Analysts expect the ratio to fall to 74% in fiscal 2027, the year to June 2027, as margins recover. Management made that case on its August call, calling the payout “a bit elevated” and “something more transitory as we rebuild our gross margin and not something structural.” It added that the dividend “has increased annually for a decade. And for now, you should expect this to continue.”
I’d take note of that “for now.” Clorox also gets a new CEO on Jan. 5, 2027: Fabian Garcia, president of Unilever Personal Care.
Kimberly-Clark has a record to protect, and a big deal to pay for
Kimberly-Clark closed its purchase of Kenvue for about $48.7 billion on Nov. 2. It paid about $6.7 billion in cash, partly funded by $4.9 billion of new notes, and issued about 281 million new shares, each of which collects the dividend too. Its own business is soft: third-quarter organic sales fell 1.3%.
Over the twelve months to Sept. 30, 2026, dividends took 87% of free cash flow ($1.69 billion of $1.94 billion), a thin cushion. Free cash flow swung from year to year while the dividend climbed steadily, and in fiscal 2025 free cash flow fell just short of the $1.66 billion paid:
(This year started stronger: cash from operations was $2.4 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up from $1.8 billion a year before.)
Kimberly-Clark says it has raised its dividend in each of the past 54 years. It’s also aiming to bring leverage down to about 2x by the end of the deal’s second year, so it’ll be splitting cash between debt and raises.
Two checks I’d count on, and one I’d watch
ONEOK’s check is the one I’d count on most, with the widest coverage and its debt coming down. Kimberly-Clark’s comes next. With 54 years of raises behind it, I expect management to fight to keep them going, though I’d guess the Kenvue debt means smaller raises for a couple of years.
Clorox is the stretch. If it halved its dividend, this portfolio’s income would fall to about $29,600 a year, and if it stopped paying, to about $23,800. I don’t expect either, since management has said to expect more raises and analysts see the payout coming down. But a retiree living on these checks should know that a third of the income depends on Clorox getting its margins back, and its new CEO’s first couple of reports will show whether that’s happening.
Forget ONEOK: 6 safe 6%+ dividend yields you can buy right now
Dividends can hold the key to enormous wealth. But only if you buy the right ones.
Picking the right high-yield dividend stock can be the difference between a dream retirement…and scraping by every month, waiting for the next Social Security check to clear.
We’ve identified six stocks yielding 6%+ that we believe every retiree should know about right now. (And ONEOK isn’t one of them.)
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
