As the new year rolls out, I decided that it would be a fun experiment to run and collect top investment picks for 2017. I reached out to the community of bloggers that I regularly interact with and asked them to participate in this collection. I performed the same exercise and the post garnered a lot of attention from the dividend investing community and readers in general. I recently posted the results on how the overall picks did over the course of the year in 2016. There are still some great picks from the 2016 top picks, and I invite you to check them for ideas. Anyway, back to the 2017 list…

The rules were simple: Pick one investment (either a stock or a fund or a commodity or any other form of investment), and present a short & quick investment reason behind the pick. Most bloggers I reached out to were happy to comply and shared their pick.

Top Investment Picks for 2017

Before I present the picks, I would like to remind the readers that these are simply picks based on current outlook and each investor should perform due diligence before investing in any of the companies mentioned. Also, the investors I reached out to are long term investors, so I discourage readers to trade in and out of these investments based on the data presented here simply because it is their top pick at the moment. It is very hard to predict what the stock/market will do over the course of one year, let alone a quarter or two.

Without further ado, here are the top picks from the blogging community for 2017. Some of the investors are not necessarily bloggers, and are some folks I regularly interact with via social media and other forums — in which case, I have linked to their public profile. The ‘DGF’ referred to next to some of the names refers to Dividend Growth Forum.

All About the Dividends: Enbridge Inc (ENB)

“Earnings will receive a big boost with the upcoming Spectra Energy purchase. That will also increases dividends for investors.”

Angry Retail Banker: Diageo plc (DEO)

“I don’t know if it’s my love for Guinness talking, but I’m eyeing DEO as my next stock pick. Not my top stock for 2017, but just my next pick. They are trading at a much better value than they have for awhile at the time of this write (forward P/E of 17) and have a number of world famous liquor brands under their belt. Good or bad economy, Hillary or Trump presidency, it does not matter; people throughout the world love to get their drink on. Sin stocks are essentially consumer staples and those have been down lately. Though I’m thinking of holding my dividend payments as cash in the hopes that we will get a nice market crash soon.”

Dependable Dividends: UEX Corp (UEX.TO)

“As the great investment strategist Ricky Bobby once said, “If you’re not first, you’re last.” I’m not investing Grandma Thora’s retirement savings here. This is just play money. So when it comes to winning a stock picking competition, I go for the riskiest stuff out there. The ideas so nutty, some kids are allergic to them. My pick for 2017: uranium miner UEX Corp. Uranium miners have been in the doghouse since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan. Spot prices have sagged below $18.00 per pound, bringing down the share prices of miners with it. The industry has fallen completely out of favor with investors. That could change in 2017. Low prices have forced producers to dial back output. Dozens of new nuclear power plants will come online in emerging countries this year. That supply/demand picture could put a bid under uranium, sending the share prices of the most marginal producers like UEX soaring. UEX is a glorified lotto ticket. This is definitely not something I’d stick in my own portfolio. The company in essence, which owns a bunch of interesting uranium fields in northern Alberta, is an out-of-the-money call option on uranium prices. But come next Christmas, I expect to be No. 1 in the competition rankings… or at the very bottom.”

DGIfortheDIY: Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD)

“Ridiculously cheap by just about any metric you can use, I have to think at some point this year it either releases a new drug or makes an acquisition that gets the stock price moving again. I realize that the HCV business is seeing declining sales, but you could completely remove that portion of its business and it would still be reasonably priced based off of its other drugs.”

Div4Son: Unilever plc (UL)

“I really like GILD or CAH. Even CVS. These companies are really beaten down. Would they bounce back in 2017? I don’t know. However, my choice is Unilever. I usually buy the UL version. I don’t think you can go wrong with this pick with a solid 3.5 yield with a forward PE of 19. Payout ratio is around 70%. FCF easily covers the dividend. I have been and will be adding more to UL.”

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