Investors are piling into dividend stocks this year. These names top Wall Street’s buy list

Investors looking to escape the volatility are turning to dividend stocks this year. Nearly $22 billion flowed into dividend exchange-funds in the first quarter of 2026 — the most since the second quarter of 2022, according to Morningstar. While the S & P 500 hit a fresh record on Monday, the market has been rocky this year, thanks to concerns about the Iran war, oil prices and artificial intelligence disruption. In risk-off markets, investors seeking relative safety tend to turn toward dividend payers, said Morningstar strategist Dan Lefkovitz. However, history shows that timing the market never works, he said. "We saw a bounce back in the broad market, and tech led that," he said. "Tech is dividend-light sector, so investors kind of mistimed their dividend stock investments." Instead, investors should buy and hold — and realize that there will be times that dividend stocks outperform and other times when they won't, said Lefkovitz. "Over the long term, I think dividend stocks are a great way to … participate in the equity market, not just for income, but also for total return. But it's important to do it in a risk-aware way," he said. "Stick with them and ride out the performance cycles." With that in mind, CNBC Pro looked for names loved by analysts in the iShares Core High Dividend ETF (HDV) , which tracks the Morningstar Dividend Yield Focus Index and is composed of high dividend yielding stocks. …