Income is a big part of investors' returns. Stocks, mutual funds and fixed income ideas in this column are featured because they are relatively solid in their ability to pay dividends or interest. We're giving income investors a resource to start their research for investments that give better yields with lower risk.

Seagate Technology used to be one of the high tech growth companies, way back in the 90's. Those days are gone. Now it's a mature manufacturer, beset with all the positives and negatives that implies. It used to pay a dividend but stopped in early 2009. The pay out was re-instated recently at an annual rate of 72 cents for a yield of 6.5%. That's very tempting in a world where most rates won't break 5% no matter how long the instrument.

While sales dipped in 2009 to $9.805 billion from $12.708 billion, they bounced back last year to $10.97 billion. This year, 20 analysts have a consensus estimate of $11.54 billion, up 5.2% with a range of $10.60 billion to $12.06 billion. Next year, consensus forecast is $11.80 billion with a range of $10.46 billion to $12.84 billion. (Fiscal year ends June 30)

Earnings did more than dip in 2009, they crashed, went through the floor and finished negative: minus 47 cents. In '08, they were $2.63. But like revenues, they bounced back, only bigger and better than ever, finishing at $3.14 in 2010. Then they went back down to $1.24. This year, 23 analysts have a consensus estimate of $1.57 with a range of 98 cents to $2.05. For 2013, they forecast $2.15 with a range of $1.04 to $3.80. Next quarterly earnings will be out on October 20. Expect 32 cents compared to 37 cents compared to last year's first fiscal period. For the second quarter, look for 43 cents vs 33 cents last year.

Hard drive sales picked up in the June quarter for STX. The whole industry reported better than expected numbers of 166 million drives. But competition is fierce in this market, and Western Digital's aggressive pricing hurt Seagates final numbers. Adding to profit pressure was the cost of raw materials, especially the required rare earth ones. There's a chance STX can pass on some or all of these costs in higher prices, but pricing is already difficult.

Seagate recently bought Samsung's hard drive group, and it should be a solid weapon against Western Digital and its purchase of Hitachi Global Storage. Seagate, with the help of the Samsung unit, will be able to stay competitive for desktop hard drives and keep it strong in the enterprise computing space.

As mentioned, STX re-instated its dividend, paying 18 cents on August 25 with an ex-dividend date of August 3. Next payment should be end of November with the ex-date at the beginning of that month. Expect another 18 cents. It takes about 17% of current earnings to pay the dividend. Also, there's over $3 billion in cash to give comfort.

Another shareholder benefit is the stock buyback program which repurchased $110 million in shares. That put Outstanding stock just under 420 million.

Essential Numbers:
- Market Cap: $4.77 billion
- Trailing P/E: 10.4
- Forward P/E: 5.27
- Price to sales ratio: .43
- Price to book: 1.93
- Operating margin: 7.51%
- Profit margin: 4.66%
- Return on equity: 19.70%
- Return on assets: 5.90%
- Total cash: $3.15 billion
- Total Cash per share: $7.51
- Total debt: $3.51 billion
- Total debt/equity: 142.59%
- Current ratio: 1.86
- Book value per share: $5.80
- Beta: 2.20
- Shares Outstanding: 419.55 million
- Float: 391.23 million
- Held by insiders: 1.49%
- Held by institutions: 82.90%

Income investors take note: Seagate is back paying dividends. Sales and earnings look solid for the next few quarters, especially if the business cycle for technology is just beginning. Further, the stock is down from $18.30 earlier this year. It could be time to dig deeper and consider this tech stock, not for its growth, but for its income and appreciation potential.