DIVIDEND STOCKS WALL STREET LOVES

As a follow-up to our look at companies with high free cash flow that could be used to raise dividends, we decided to take a broader and simpler approach to list dividend stocks favored the most by analysts.

Starting with the S&P 1500 Composite Index, which is made up of the S&P 500SPX, -1.48% the S&P Midcap 400 MID, -1.56%  and the S&P Small-Cap 600SML, -1.51% we narrowed our list to 249 stocks with dividend yields of at least 3.50%.

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We then pared the group to 209 companies covered by at least five sell-side analysts. The idea is to make sure you can get access to research reports and have a variety of opinions.

Here are the 20 remaining companies for which more than 70% of analysts rate the shares “buy”:

Source: FactSet

The list is sorted by analysts’ sentiment, and if there is a tie for the share of analysts with “buy” ratings, the companies are sorted by dividend yield.

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