Pros' Picks: The 13 Best Dividend Stocks for 2020

The bull market went into overdrive in 2019.

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The bull market went into overdrive in 2019. The S&P 500 rushed ahead by 29% – its best showing in six years. But as much as investors will always welcome such returns, it does make it tougher to be an income investor.

When dividend stocks go up in price, their yields go down. The dividend yield on the S&P 500 started 2019 at more than 2% but finished the year at 1.8%. Yes, the market keeps setting new all-time highs, but the rally that seems to never end also makes it difficult to find excellent dividend stocks with generous or even decent payouts.

High-quality dividend stocks with better-than-average yields do exist, however. We're here to help you find them.

We scoured the S&P 500 for dividend stocks with yields of at least 2%. 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 2.0 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.

Here are the 13 best blue-chip dividend stocks for 2020, then, based on the strength of their analyst ratings.

Disclaimer

Analysts’ ratings, stock prices, dividend yields and other data are as of Dec. 31, unless otherwise noted. Companies are listed by strength of analysts’ average rating, from lowest to highest. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent payout and dividing by the share price.

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Dan Burrows
Senior Investing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.