3 Defensive Dividend Stocks for Retirees Worried About the Next Market Downturn

Résumé détaillé

Phone plans, cancer drugs, and pipeline tolls keep getting paid when the economy stalls. Three low-beta dividend payers each carry one risk that could undercut the income, and only one of them is easy to spot.

When growth slows, retirees need income from companies whose customers keep paying. Phone bills, prescriptions, and pipeline fees fit that description, and the stock market treats them that way. Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) has a beta of just 0.186, AT&T (NYSE:T) sits at 0.494, and Enbridge (NYSE:ENB) at 0.786, so all three have moved less than the broad market. Each one also reported third-quarter results in the last four weeks that either raised or confirmed full-year guidance. Below is how well each dividend is covered.

Current yield: AT&T pays $0.2775 per share quarterly, or $1.11 annualized. With the stock around $22.18, that works out to about a 5.0% yield.

The dividend is secure: coverage is strong. AT&T paid $8.18 billion in common dividends in 2025, and management expects $18 billion+ of free cash flow in 2026. That puts the dividend at roughly 45% of the guidance floor. In the third quarter, free cash flow of $4.95 billion covered the $1.95 billion dividend about 2.5 times. Against the raised 2026 adjusted EPS outlook of ~$2.40, the payout ratio is about 46%. One flaw marks the history. The quarterly payout fell from $0.52 to $0.2775 beginning in April 2022 and has stayed flat since. Today's dividend is a new, well-covered payout rather than a growth run.

Many successful investors eventually reach the same moment. The saving is done, the portfolio is built, and the question quietly changes from how much can I grow this to how much can I take out? Get that second question wrong and decades of good investing can come apart in a handful of years.

Risk: Debt is the main concern. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA rose to 3.13x from 2.68x after a $23 billion spectrum purchase, and management doesn't expect to return to its 2.5x target until 2029. Total debt stands at $159.6B. With roughly $10 billion of buybacks planned for 2026, extra cash will go to repurchases and debt paydown before any dividend raise.

Current yield: Bristol Myers pays $0.63 per share quarterly, or…

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