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Stocks spent most of Wednesday in negative territory as investors mulled the latest Russia-Ukraine headlines.
Following Tuesday's reports that Russia was withdrawing some troops from Ukraine's border (which gave markets a boost), NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday said his organization has not seen any de-escalation. "On the contrary, it appears that Russia continues its military buildup," Stoltenberg told a group of defense ministers from NATO's member states at a meeting in Brussels.
But the major benchmarks erased their earlier losses after the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's January policy meeting.
"In markets, timing is everything, and the delayed reaction [to raise rates] from the Fed has investors convinced that aggressive policy tightening is on the horizon," says Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management.
And although today's minutes did indicate the central bank is poised to raise rates at a quicker pace than it did during the last tightening cycle in order to combat surging inflation, "there was nothing in the minutes that suggested the Fed would be more aggressive than what the market has already priced in," Ripley adds.
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While the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2% at 34,934) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.1% at 14,124) still ended the day in the red, the S&P 500 Index (+0.1% at 4,475) managed to hang on for a win.
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Other news in the stock market today:
With geopolitical uncertainty front and center, markets are likely going to remain volatile.
"In the short term, stocks are moving in lockstep with headlines from the Russia/Ukraine situation," says David Bahnsen, chief investment officer at wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group.
He counsels investors to make sure their portfolios are well-constructed, with "high-quality stocks with strong cash flows and a long history of dividend growth." There are many different corners of the market investors can look to find solid dividend growers.
The Dividend Aristocrats – companies that have raised their dividend payments annually for the last 25 years – is certainly a good place to start, as are the yield-friendly real estate, healthcare and energy sectors.
Another strategy is to home in on companies that consistently pay "special dividends," or additional one-time payouts on top of their regular dividends. In any given year, there are typically only a handful of companies that reward shareholders with these bonus dividends, and these 10 names are shining examples of this special breed.
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