If you’re a regular StreetAuthority reader, then you may now consider yourself an income expert.

Just this past few months, we’ve show you why dividends are the key to wealth (here), that international stocks offer the best yields on the market (here) and given you copious examples of dividend-payers worth owning (here, here and here).

But today I’m going to tell you all about a class of stocks that combines the very best qualities of top dividend stocks: High-yielding international companies that you can buy today, forget about tomorrow and own for the rest of your life.

I think you’ll love them.

You see, if you’re after high yields, there’s no better place to look than foreign stocks.

Because in fact, more than 79% of the world’s highest-yielding stocks are based in international markets.

#-ad_banner-#The average stock in the United Kingdom yields 3.9%. Australia’s average yield is 4.7%. And New Zealand pays 4.7%. By contrast, the average U.S. stock yields about 2%.

But my research team and I dug through these stocks looking for something more. That is, we wanted to find international companies with the qualities of what my colleague Dave Forest likes to call “Forever Stocks.”

Forever Stocks are stable companies that have easy-to-understand businesses. You don’t have to be a rocket scientest to understand them. And because they are so well-established, they pay a steady stream of secure, growing dividends and are practically immune to market swings over the long haul.

Think about it. If you look all the way back to 1950, you’ll find that the S&P 500 has dropped 16 times over a rolling one-year period. And in its worst one-year period, the S&P dropped 44.8%.

But if you look at a longer time horizon, the S&P has never suffered a loss over any 20 year period going back to 1950.

This means as long as you’ve picked the right companies, your success actually increases with the fewer trades you make and the longer you hold.

Based on our findings, my team and I have compiled our top three picks into a short report for readers of my premium newsletter, High-Yield International. It’s called “The 3 Best International Income Stocks To Hold Forever.”

You may have heard about one of these companies before. It’s one of the largest companies in Europe, and the sixth largest in the world. Yet with a yield of 5.9%, I’m willing to bet most regular investors in the U.S. completely ignore it.

I’m talking about BP Plc (NYSE: BP).

In the short run, there’s no denying that the Gulf spill in 2011 weighed on BP. The company divested billions in noncore assets to cover legal fees and settlements. But in a sector of $100+ billion valuations, $42 billion settlements are more like speed bumps.

Today, four years after the Gulf spill, BP remains a powerful company and is quietly emerging stronger than ever.

Part of the reason is that BP holds one of world’s largest privately owned oil reserves, which totaled 18 billion barrels of oil at the end of 2013.

In fact, the reserve is so large that BP can hypothetically continue extracting 3.2 million barrels per day for 5,312 days, almost 15 years, without replacing any reserves. In 2013, this asset helped the company contribute nearly 4% of the global oil production.

The company also owns more than 14 refineries worldwide, including one of the largest in the United States. This massive network of energy assets has helped BP’s revenue recover nearly 20% in the past five years. The company’s U.S. refineries alone are capable of processing nearly 750,000 barrels of crude per day.

And despite the oil market’s crash earlier this year, BP continues to benefit from two sustainable competitive advantages.

The first comes from its size. Large energy companies enjoy lower production costs per barrel than their smaller competitors.

The second advantage comes from the company’s strategic location. You see, at the end of 2013, almost half of BP’s proved reserves were located in the Middle East.

This is important because the average cost of producing a barrel of oil in the Middle East is by far the lowest in the world at less than $20, according to the Energy Information Association (EIA). That is more than a 50% discount to the high production costs in Africa and offshore.

Industry-Leading Dividend And Dividend Growth
Finally, BP pays its quarterly dividend in U.S. dollars — making it even easier for U.S. investors. It has been a rock-solid dividend payer dating back to 1989.

Even since cutting its payment after the Gulf spill in 2011, BP has been aggressively recharging its dividend for an average growth rate of 10.4% in the last three years. And at 5.9%, BP’s yield is among the highest of large global energy companies.

All of these factors make BP a perfect international Forever Stock, but it’s not the only one I found.

Now, I can’t give them away here. But if you’d like to learn more about the power of international dividend stocks — and the high yields that most U.S. investors are missing out on — I invite you to learn more about my newsletter, High-Yield International. If you decide it’s right for you, I’ll immediately send you the report I just mentioned, “The 3 Best International Income Stocks To Hold Forever” — absolutely free.