A dividend is a payment every single quarter made by the company to its shareholders. You can change the dividend payout rate if you are a major shareholder and have the dividend payout twice, thrice, or even our times a year. However, basically, dividends are paid every four months. However, the typical way a company pays out the dividend is in cash or shareholders can get them in stock bonuses or more shares.

Here are the top 7 best dividend stocks and companies:
• Apple Inc.: Apple is the number one company, also when it comes to paying dividends. The dividend they pay is around 2% – they pay out about $2.28 per year in dividend to the current shareholders. Their EPS is about $8.58 per share which is their profit rate and that’s way higher from what they are paying as dividend. Apple shows in their statics that their income increases every year which means their company will be able to give out a higher dividend in future.

• Google: Google is a company that is moving aggressively in terms of net income per year. We can see an increase in the rate of profit in billions every year. Although they don’t pay dividends, they have the potential to pay dividends in the near future. They have got $25.81 earnings per share which means they are way healthy company they have too much cash on their balance sheet and they would definitely start paying dividends as they shareholders would start demanding it.

• The Home Depot: The Home Depot pays pretty good dividend as now as it is around 2.2% in yield. They pay $2.78 dividend per year per share and their EPS is around $5.91 which is a little under. Five years ago, they netted $5.3 billion is profit and the next year they increased a billion dollars more in profit and they now earn up to $8 billion in profit. The company is getting more and more profitable as well as better and better in paying dividends.

• Oak Tree Capital: The Oak tree capital pays a dividend of 5.6% per share. Their profitability seems to be pretty strong. Oak tree is known as the alternative investments manager that narrows down to distressed debts. With over $20 billion in cash, they get to pay attractive dividends.

• Brookfields: Brookfields infrastructure partners which has a limited partnership holds a 4.5% dividend rate. Their dividend rate is great when you see the steady growth of the company and their stock price has been increasing more than the previous years now. They provide road power transmission lines, ports, pipe lines and lots more that generate steady recurring cash flows, setting the stage for handsome dividend payouts in the future.

• Diageo: Having the pride of calling itself as the largest booze company in the world, Diageo is a chief company that provides the best dividend stocks in UK. It holds the record of highest volume of sales and operating profit globally. Though a Chinese beverage company Kweichow Moutai is gearing up for a tough competition DEO still has occupied a boundless realm of over 180 countries with 29 leading brands. DEO shows a 14% increase in its sales and 28% boost in profits. Hence manages to pay dividends up to 5% with a stock yield of 2.5%.

• Total SA: A petroleum refining company, is a multinational integrated oil and gas company and one of the major oil companies in the world. Total SA has its headquarters in France, Europe which produces major dividend shares. It has numerous assets across the world including oil fields to pipelines and refining capacity. The company has raised its income to $25 billion by reducing their capital expenditure. This effort has paid off well to provide a dividend of 5.1%.