When it comes to investing for the long term and building your retirement wealth, it’s essential to find high-quality investments that can grow your capital at a consistent and rapid pace, ensuring that you are as comfortable as can be. However, as important as finding high-quality stocks is for retirement and the dividends they provide, it’s also essential to focus on finding reliable stocks that you have confidence in.
This is why investing for retirement is so important, especially if you can start as early as possible. The faster your investments can grow in value, the better off you’ll be. However, it’s paramount to ensure you don’t take too many risks and potentially lose a significant chunk of the nest egg that you’ve set aside for retirement.
So, with that in mind, if you’re looking for high-quality and reliable dividend stocks for retirement, here are three options that can provide growing passive income as well as protect your capital.
A top utility stock to buy for growing dividends through your retirement
Some of the best stocks to buy if you’re looking for growing passive income, as well as safe and reliable companies to own through your retirement, are highly regulated utility stocks like Emera (TSX: EMA).
Utility stocks like Emera are ideal investments because the gas and electricity services it provides customers are essential. Therefore, the demand for these services won’t typically see much volatility, even if the economic environment is worsening.
Plus, in addition to being defensive, utility stocks are highly regulated by governments. Therefore, the revenue, cash flow and profit that they earn are typically highly predictable, which lowers the risk of the investment considerably.
This allows utility stocks like Emera to constantly invest in expanding operations and growing the business, which, in turn, leads to consistent dividend increases every year.
That’s why Emera is such an excellent stock to buy and hold long term. It’s perfect for investors heading into retirement because it’s one of the most reliable stocks on the market, pays a dividend that currently yields over 5% and has increased that dividend for 16 straight years now.
A top Canadian telecom stock
BCE (TSX: BCE) is another high-quality, blue-chip stock that investors heading into retirement can buy for its dividend income.
Because it’s such a massive and dominant company in an industry that’s quickly become essential and has significant barriers to entry, BCE is the perfect stock to buy if you want to boost your passive income.
Although it’s not highly regulated like Emera, BCE is another reliable stock that can weather the storm in economic downturns. Plus, because it’s a cash cow and is constantly generating billions in cash flow, BCE is another Dividend Aristocrat that provides investors with an increase in passive income each year.
Currently, BCE offers a yield of roughly 6.4% and has increased its dividend for 14 straight years. Furthermore, in just the last five years, the dividend has grown by over 28%, showing what a high-quality investment it can be for retirement investors looking to boost their dividend income.
A top Canadian dividend stock with a yield of more than 7.3%
In addition to BCE and Emera, Enbridge (TSX: ENB) is another impressive dividend stock that’s ideal for investors building a retirement portfolio.
Although Enbridge’s operations are far different than BCE, in a lot of ways, it’s a similar investment.
The majority of its operations are highly defensive and essential to the North American economy. Furthermore, Enbridge is another massive blue-chip stock with a dominant position in an industry with significant barriers to entry. And like BCE, Enbridge also owns plenty of long-life assets that consistently generate billions in cash flow, making it another cash cow.
This has allowed Enbridge to increase its dividend for 27 straight years now, showing what an impressive track record it has of not just growing its business but also its ability to weather the storm when a recession hits.
And with the stock trading a little under 20% off its highs, it now offers a dividend yield of more than 7.3%. Plus, in the last five years, it’s increased that dividend by 32%, showing what an ideal stock it is for investors that are building a portfolio for retirement.
