But that doesn't mean all high-yield dividend stocks are bad news. If you wanted to sit back and collect $1,500 in quarterly dividend income, you could do so by putting up an initial investment of $63,000 and splitting it evenly among the following four stocks, which sport an average yield of 9.53%.

If there's such a thing as a premier ultra-high-yield dividend stock in the energy space, its master limited partnership Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE:EPD ) . Its nearly 8.4% yield is, amazingly, the lowest on this list. However, the company has increased its base annual payout for 22 consecutive years , making it one of the safest ultra-high-yield stocks on the planet.

During the worst of the pandemic, it didn't drop below 1.6 (any figure below 1 would signify an unsustainable payout). Slow and steady growth makes Enterprise Products one of the finest income stocks to own .

Has averaged a double-digit yield in 11 of the past 12 years.

A mortgage REIT is a company that borrows money at lower short-term lending rates with the intent to use this capital to purchase higher-yielding long-term assets, such as mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The difference between this average long-term yield and short-term borrowing rate is known as the net interest margin. And, as you might guess, the wider this margin, the more profit potential for AGNC and other mortgage REITs.

Unlike Enterprise Products, Antero was forced to reduce its distribution earlier this year. Its quarterly payout declined 27% to $0.225 from $0.308. However, it wasn't the pandemic that coerced this move.

Antero Midstream has reallocated some of the capital it would normally have paid out via dividends to boost its capital budget and beef up its transmission and storage infrastructure. Curtailing the dividend now and upping its 2021 infrastructure spending is expected to add $400 million in incremental free cash flow for Antero Midstream through 2025. 

Saving the highest yield for last, we have mortgage REIT Invesco Mortgage Capital (NYSE:IVR )

as I noted with AGNC, economic recoveries are generally a positive thing for mortgage REITs. In the second quarter, Invesco Mortgage Capital's average net interest margin expanded by 32 basis points to 2.12% from 1.8% in the sequential first quarter. 

The ride will likely be bumpier with Invesco, compared with AGNC, given its 2020 miscues and its ongoing shift into agency MBS. But with management focused on agency assets, Invesco's ultra-high-yield payout can be trusted  once more.