5 Safe Dividend Stocks to Buy for Retirement

With President Donald Trump into his first month in office, it’s time for investors to focus on how to navigate what likely will be a bumpy investing road — certainly this year, but potentially for years to come.
What always will matter for investors — particularly those planning for retirement — is building a portfolio that includes no-brainer dividend stocks that can stand the ups and downs of the markets.
Here’s a look at five safe dividend stocks that fit our retirement needs:
Cisco Systems; Dividend yield: 3.5%
Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) continues to be virtually eponymous with routers, switches, and integrated networks.
The problem is, those businesses are waning.
Cisco didn’t have a smooth recovery coming out of the financial crisis, though management did manage to right the ship starting around 2012. That said, revenues have been mostly flat thanks to its aging legacy businesses.Cisco’s dividend is relatively fresh, having started in 2011 at 6 cents per share. Now, the dividend stands more than quadruple that at 26 cents, good for a yield well north of 3%. And given that CSCO still pays out less than half its profits in earnings, you can expect Cisco to keep hiking its dividend — albeit, maybe not as aggressively as it has in the past half-decade.
Consolidated Edison; Dividend yield: 3.8%
ConEd primarily serves New York City and most of its northern suburbs, and has been around since 1832. Today it delivers gas, electric and steam service (think radiators) to more than 10 million customers, generating nearly $13 billion in revenue for 2016.
New York and its suburbs continue to grow in population, housing starts are up, NYC is still home to a multitude of corporate headquarters locations, and tourists still flock to the Big Apple in droves. But ConEd isn’t simply resting on what the New York area has to offer.
To start, ConEd is working to find ways to produce cleaner energy that costs less for it to produce, like a customer-centric program in Brooklyn and Queens that’s helping to provide customers with incentives to lower costs instead of needing to build a $1 billion substation. ConEd is also building out an Advanced Metering Infrastructure program — a smart meter technology that will help identify local power generation problems and possible power outages more quickly for customers, allowing ConEd to administer services more quickly.
Lockheed Martin; Dividend yield: 2.9%
Defense is one of President Trump’s biggest areas of focus, and Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) is … well, it’s a solid bet for the years ahead, despite what the headlines might indicate.
This global aerospace and security giant operates within five segments, including Aeronautics, Information Systems & Global Solutions (IS&GS), Missiles and Fire Control (MFC), Mission Systems and Training (MST) and Space Systems. Lockheed’s diversity of product offerings and industries provides the ability to weather some difficult times.
On the dividend front, LMT has raised its dividend for 14 consecutive years, and those haven’t been meager upticks. Lockheed’s quarterly payout has grown 82% in just the past five years alone.
PepsiCo; Dividend yield: 2.9%
If President Trump’s policies do indeed break the economy wide open for growth, consumer products giant PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP) is among the dividend stocks that will be on the front lines of prosperity.
PepsiCo isn’t afraid to spend, either — PEP poured out $4 billion on advertising and $700 million on R&D in 2015 — so its brands should continue to saturate both the markets and consumers’ brains with each commercial or product promotion.
Johnson & Johnson; Dividend yield: 2.8%
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) is one of my personal favorites among retirement-focused dividend stocks, and full disclosure: I own it myself.
JNJ straddles two critical sector of the economy in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Both in and of themselves also intersect, which brings us to the key point behind JNJ’s longevity, strength, and investment selling point: its Consumer, Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices divisions.

Read more:

• Warren Buffet quits Walmart Inc and adds volume in the financial sector
• Aston Martin to become public until the end of 2018
• Here are the 20 stocks that the biggest hedge funds love most
• Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: UAA, PFE, AET, MDLZ & more
• Brian Sozzi: Apple Might Be Worth $1 Trillion Very Soon