These blue-chip dividend stocks with yields of at least 3% are among the favorite stock picks of Wall Street's analyst community at the moment.
When it comes to Wall Street's favorite dividend stocks, the
pros are all about energy companies and utilities these days.
Whether it's an increase in residential energy needs or a
nascent recovery in commodity prices, analysts' most highly rated dividend
stocks – firms such as oil and gas drillers, electric utilities, pipeline
companies, oilfield services and other sector names – find themselves heavily
over-represented.
To find analysts' favorite dividend stocks, we scoured the
S&P 500 for dividend stocks with yields of more than 3%, excluding a number
of extremely high yielders because of excessive risk. (Sometimes, a too-high
yield can be a warning sign that a stock is in deep trouble.)
From that pool, we focused on stocks with an average broker
recommendation of Buy or better. S&P Global Market Intelligence surveys
analysts' stock ratings and scores them on a five-point scale, where 1.0 equals
Strong Buy and 5.0 means Strong Sell. Any score of 2.5 or lower means that
analysts, on average, rate the stock a Buy. The closer the score gets to 1.0,
the stronger the Buy call.
Lastly, we dug into research and analysts' estimates on the
top-scoring names.
That led us to these top 25 dividend stocks, by virtue of
their high analyst ratings and bullish outlooks. Read on as we analyze what
makes each one stand out.
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