Top Wall Street analysts prefer certain dividend stocks for boosting portfolio returns. This is the headline. The analysts picked these stocks from thousands of dividend-paying companies. They did not say which stocks. They did not name the analysts. They did not explain the criteria. They just prefer them.
The summary admits identifying the right stocks is challenging. Challenging for whom? Not for the top analysts who already prefer the right ones. They figured it out. You didn't. That's why they're top analysts and you're reading articles about what top analysts prefer instead of being a top analyst who prefers things.
Here's what happened. Some analysts looked at dividend stocks. They applied their proprietary models. The models spit out tickers. They told a journalist they prefer these tickers. The journalist wrote a headline promising to tell you which tickers. Then the journalist remembered they get paid by the click, not by the information. So you click. You read. You find out absolutely nothing. You learn that analysts prefer stocks that pay dividends and that this will boost your returns. Incredible work.
Dividend stocks boost portfolio returns the same way buying lottery tickets boosts your retirement savings. Technically true if you pick the right ones. Completely useless information if nobody tells you which ones. But the analysts know. They prefer them. They prefer them so much they won't name them in the headline or the summary. They'll save that for the article. Maybe. Probably not.
The retail trader reads this headline and thinks he's one click away from the secret. The secret is there is no secret. The secret is analysts prefer stocks that go up and pay dividends. The secret is you'll never know which stocks until after they've already gone up. The secret is the article is an ad for a premium subscription service that costs more per month than the dividends you'll earn in a year.
Photo by Patrick Weissenberger on Unsplash
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