Picking stocks can be fun. It can also be stressful. The bigger a stock's potential gain is forecast to be, the more volatile that ticker seems to be. It's a treacherous dynamic simply because it's all too easy to bail out of a falling stock at the worst possible time -- that is, right before a rebound.

If this reality is agonizingly familiar to you, there's a solution: Swap out at least some of your stocks for real estate investment trusts (REITs). Not only do these dividend-oriented investments ebb and flow at different times than ordinary stocks do, but data compiled by The Motley Fool also says they generally outperform the broad market. Three of these names stand out among the rest right now, particularly if this is your first foray into REITs.

But first things first.

Continue reading

Source Fool.com