The stock market got off to a very volatile start this year, and while some stability seems to have returned, many experts predict turbulence is the new reality.

Zacks has suggested three dividend stocks with huge growth potential.

• Ormat Technologies (ORA)
• "Ormat develops, manufactures, and markets innovative power systems.  The company provides alternative and renewable energy technology.  Ormat currently offers a dividend yield of 5.62%," Zacks says. "The company also has positive cash flow growth, and has sustained positive free cash flows over the last two years. Ormat has very desirable growth metrics across the board."
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• Omega Healthcare Investors (OHI)
• "Omega Healthcare is a self-administered REIT which invests in income-producing healthcare facilities," Zacks said. "The company doles out a dividend yield of 6.78%.  The company has current cash flow growth of 31.66%, which should help the company to sustain its dividend payout to equity investors."
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• American Eagle Outfitters (AEO)
• "American Eagle sells clothes, accessories, and shoes.  American Eagle offers investors a 3.08% dividend yield.  Current cash flow growth is 37% for AEO, and the company is also pretty liquid with a current ratio of 1.56," Zacks said.

Meanwhile, spooked by the early 2016 stock market selloff and sick of low interest rates, income investors have been bidding up dividend stocks at a feverish pace - so much so that these shares now are priced at levels high enough to worry some money managers, Reuters reported.

An index of utility stocks - the poster children of high dividend companies - closed at a record high on Wednesday after the Fed held off on raising rates. A broader group of high-dividend paying stocks, the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index, is up almost 14 percent after hitting a 14-month bottom in mid-January.

Investors are now paying about $42 for each dollar of dividend they are buying in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index, while the average since 1935 is roughly $29, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

The dividend yield for the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index sits at 2.4 percent - roughly 31 percent below its long-term average.

"People are paying a lot" to get the dividend, said Richard Bernstein, chief executive and chief investment officer of New York-based Richard Bernstein Advisors, which manages $3 billion in assets. "To think it's safe is naive," he said.

(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).

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