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Dividend stocks provide the opportunity for consistent income for risk-averse investors. But not all dividend stocks are equally good, and I prefer to find stocks with steadily increasing dividends and wide moats. Three great stocks that come to mind: JNJRealty Income Group NYSE: Oand CVS Health NYSE: Here's why I believe each is a great holding over the long term.

25 Big Stocks Raising Dividends for 25 Years

That diversification is an enormous benefit to the company, as the sleepier medical device and consumer products divisions can provide the company with strong cash flow while its more boom-and-bust pharma division drives higher growth for the company. Having recently completed the acquisition of Vogue International for its consumer division, management is now seeking opportunities in med tech and pharma -- although none appear to have materialized yet.

I'd pay special attention to cancer drug Imbruvica as it expands into new indications, and multiple myeloma drug Darzalex, which was recently brought to market. Company management expects both to be big potential wins for the company's top line going forward.

And the reason why is obvious: Interest rates are low, so the cost of borrowing is low, and REITs like Realty Income can more cheaply fund acquisitions and grow their profitability and diversification. And boy, has Realty Income grown. So much so that it has raised its dividend for 75 consecutive quarters. And with its most recent raise, the company has grown its monthly dividend by 6.

Realty Income's big advantage is its low cost of capital -- a function of its size and high credit rating -- which should give it a big leg up on the competition when interest rates finally increase. Realty Income isn't going anywhere, and it's a great long-term holding in anyone's portfolio.

CVS Health is well known as a retail pharmacy, but people seem to forget the larger by revenue component of its business: While the retail side has been growing, the PBM is on fire. CVS's big moat is the fact that it's an integrated healthcare company. Unlike, say, a Walgreens or Express Scriptsit's a pharmacy, a clinic manager, a mail-order pharmacy, alpari co uk binary option system jobs a PBM -- enabling it to serve patients across a number of different health circumstances and challenges.

This move toward vertical integration is expensive, and necessitated purchases of home-infusion specialist Coram, long-term care cost of forex accounting pharmacy provider Omnicare, and Target 's in-store pharmacies over the last year, but it's paying off in spades. And with a dividend yielding roughly 1. Michael Douglass owns shares of Johnson and Johnson.

The Motley Fool owns shares of Express Scripts.

The Motley Fool 6 dividend stocks to buy and hold forever CVS Health and Johnson and Johnson. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

The Safe Monthly Dividend Stock to Buy and Hold Forever – Investors Alley

We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Deputy Managing Editor, Fool. I started in Healthcare, and that will always be my first love.

3 Stocks You Can Buy and Hold Forever -- The Motley Fool

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