2 Iconic Dividend Stocks That You Should Avoid Today

Real estate investment trusts Realty Income (NYSE: O) and National Retail Properties (NYSE: NNN) are conservative bellwethers in the net-lease sector. Their yields are solidly above the miserly 1.8% or so you can get from an S&P 500 Index fund today. And they each have long and impressive histories of annual dividend increases.

So let me tell you why buying either one would be a mistake.

There's no denying that Realty Income and National Retail are well-run companies operating in a desirable niche. Companies don't increase their dividend annually for 27 years and 30 years, respectively, by accident. A big piece of this is thanks to what these real estate investment trusts (REITs) do -- which actually isn't that much at the individual property level. 

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Source Fool.com