Stock Market Crash: The Best Dividend Stocks to Buy Right Now

1 hour ago 4

Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool

Sun, May 10, 2026 astatine 11:20 AM CDT 4 min read

So you're disquieted astir a banal marketplace crash. You're surely not alone. Global disturbances unsocial mightiness beryllium capable to origin worry, but cheque retired the past fewer years' show of the S&P 500:

Year

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S&P 500 Return

2016	12%
2017	21.8%
2018	(4.4%)
2019	31.5%
2020	18.4%
2021	28.7%
2022	(18.11%)
2023	26.29%
2024	25.02%
2025	17.88%

Data source: Slickcharts.com. Returns bespeak reinvested dividends.

Considering that the semipermanent mean yearly summation of the S&P 500 is astir 10%, these are a batch of heady numbers -- mostly double-digit gains, and lone 2 down years. It's tenable to expect different diminution successful the adjacent twelvemonth oregon three.

So, what dividend stocks mightiness you bargain present if you're disquieted astir a crash? Well, present are 2 to consider.

1. Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark (NASDAQ: KMB) should beryllium a acquainted name, arsenic it's location to brands specified arsenic Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, Poise, Depends, Pull-Ups, Goodnites, Softex, and Viva. Its products are mostly items that radical volition request to bargain whether the marketplace has crashed oregon not -- toilet paper, insubstantial towels, diapers, and truthful on. Thus, this is simply a antiaircraft company. (Kimberly-Clark is besides aiming to bargain Kenvue, with its Neutrogena, Tylenol, and Listerine brands.)

The institution has struggled successful caller years, with its banal down astir 22% implicit the past twelvemonth (as of May 5). That has made its banal valuation rather attractive, and its caller forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 12.8 is good beneath the five-year mean of 18.6. It has been moving connected cutting costs and modernizing its proviso chain, truthful it's aiming to crook its fortunes around. One extremity is gross margins of astatine slightest 40%.

Kimberly-Clark's dividend precocious yielded a hefty 5.4%, and the institution has upped that payout for 54 years successful a row. Long-term investors tin bask important income from this stock, portion waiting for the turnaround to beryllium completed.

2. Realty Income

Realty Income (NYSE: O) besides seems a coagulated banal to clasp during a marketplace downturn -- oregon immoderate different time. It's a existent property concern spot (REIT) -- a institution that buys tons of existent property and leases it to tenants. Realty Income's dividend output was precocious a weighty 5.1% -- and it has paid its dividend for 670 months successful a row.

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