Rare As Hen's Teeth: 2 Income Stocks That Work At Every

Rare As Hen's Teeth: 2 Income Stocks That Work At Every Age

Total return ≈ dividend yield + dividend growth, so 5% yield + 8% growth ≈ 13% annualized - the math that makes high-yield, high-growth stocks exceptionally scarce

Use four screening questions: does yield+growth beat ~5% (short Treasuries), does cash flow track inflation, is payout covered and tied to cash-flow growth, what's the catch

MPLX snapshot - 7.5% yield, $1.0765/qtr distribution, 12.5% recent raises, 2Q26 adj EBITDA $1.8bn (+5% YoY), DCF $1.45bn vs distributions $1.092bn, coverage ~1.33x

Inflation exposure and risks for MPLX - fee-based Marathon contracts plus volume upside, gathering volumes +15% YoY, Permian ~25 Bcf/d now to ~35 Bcf/d by 2030; watch K-1 tax and sponsor concentration

DT Midstream profile - 2.9% yield, lower current cash yield but dividend growth explicitly aligned with cash flows, offering more automatic inflation linkage and steadier long-term income growth

Introduction

Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It's to see my dividends coming in. - John D. Rockefeller

Income investing sounds easy.

Buy something that pays you, collect the checks, and go fishing, or whatever you like to do as a hobby.

However, finding income that works at EVERY age is one of the hardest jobs in investing, if you ask me. In general, finding suitable investments that come with inflation protection on a long-term basis is a very tough thing to do.

A 25-year-old needs growth. A 55-year-old needs growth and income. An 80-year-old needs income that doesn't lose value every time the grocery bill goes up. Most stocks are good at one of these jobs. Very few are good at all three.

High-yielders usually pay you now and then stagnate. Fast growers usually pay you close to nothing for a decade. And the stocks that do both are super rare.

In this article, I'll explain why that is (it's mostly math), share four questions I ask every income stock, and apply them to two companies that pass the test from opposite directions: MPLX (MPLX), which is a 7.5%-yielding midstream partnership with a 12.5% raise, and DT Midstream (DTM), a 2.9%-yielding natural gas pipeline company that grows its dividend in line with its cash flows.

One pays you now. The other pays you later.

And I absolutely love both - and own neither (for now).

So, let's dive in!

Rare As Hen's Teeth: 2 Income Stocks That Work At Every Age

Introduction

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