Getting Defensive With Two Dividend Plays

On Monday, the market managed to shrug off the weekend's elections in France and Greece, and equities ended the day fairly flat. However, the acceleration of the problems in Europe is only just beginning, and as a result, I would look for increased volatility in our markets over the coming months.

Given the large gains of the previous six months, I believe the best-case scenario is that the market will tread water through the summer. The chances of a significant pullback are escalating. The prudent investor should take a more defensive tone until we get some clarity on the European situation or strong GDP growth domestically. I would look to shift assets to low-beta names that have solid dividends, a high percentage of recurring revenue and robust cash flow. Here are two stocks that meet these criteria:...340 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.

Read the full story and get access to the Real Money Pro trading floor.

There’s no substitute for a trading floor to get great ideas, so Jim Cramer created a better one at Real Money and blogs there exclusively. We then added legendary hedge fund manager, Doug Kass, with his exclusive Daily Diary and best investing ideas. Staffed with more than 4 dozen investing pros, money managers, journalists and analysts, Real Money Pro gives you a flood of opinions, analysis and actionable trading advice found nowhere else, and allows you to interact directly with each expert.

Already a Subscriber? Please login.

Except as otherwise indicated, quotes are delayed. Quotes delayed at least 20 minutes for all exchanges. Market Data provided by Interactive Data. Company fundamental data provided by Morningstar. Earnings and ratings provided by Zacks. Mutual fund data provided by Valueline. ETF data provided by Lipper. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions.

TheStreet Ratings updates stock ratings daily. However, if no rating change occurs, the data on this page does not update. The data does update after 90 days if no rating change occurs within that time period.

IDC calculates the Market Cap for the basic symbol to include common shares only. Year-to-date mutual fund returns are calculated on a monthly basis by Value Line and posted mid-month.