3 Of The Safest Dividend Stocks For Retirees

Safety is still extremely important in retirement investing, even if you have to reach for higher yields. I have found that a lot of people think that their investing strategies have to get more complicated as they look for higher rates of growth and dividends. This could not be further from the truth. The best companies with the strongest long-term prospects usually have three things in common. 1. A wide economic moat of industry leadership with barriers to competition, 2. Consistent free cash flows even as the company consistently and 3. increases capital spending. An aggressive stock buyback and dividend policy that limits pet-projects and overspending

As with any smart portfolio of stocks, you need to spread your investments over several industries and sectors. This will help avoid a big drop in portfolio value due to any negative headlines within a specific group. Three strong choices to start: Unilever (UN) is one of the largest providers of consumer staple goods in the world with a strong presence in emerging markets and Europe. Merck & Company (MRK) is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world with a market capitalization of $137 billion. Cisco Systems (CSCO) is the king of networking and even though some may question this accolade given a slowdown in hardware, the company is positioned to take advantage of the shift to services and cloud computing.

Source: Seeking Alpha

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