You can forget about a Santa-Claus rally. That's the message from the market this December. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are in correction territory, and are heading for their worst December performance since the Great Depression.
With the markets this perilous, top analysts are recommending dividend stocks as a way for savvy investors to hedge their bets. Regardless of market conditions, the dividend payment provides a steady source of income every quarter which, investors hope, should increase over time.
Here we turn to TipRanks' Stock Screener to pinpoint the best dividend stocks out there right now. TipRanks uses a natural language processing algorithm to rank analysts based on their success rate and average return. That allows us to filter for high dividend stocks with a 'strong buy' consensus from only the top-performing analysts.
Let's take a closer look at their five top dividend picks now: