As most financial advisors know, having some solid dividend stocks can cushion a portfolio's volatility, reduce reliance on stock price appreciation, and allow for better sleep. For this week's Barron's Advisor Big Q, we asked four investment pros to name their top dividend picks. Not all of them have fat yields, but our panelists like them for reasons like the strength of the businesses, their history of dividend increases, and the potential for future ones. BP, Kraft Heinz, and Morgan Stanley are just a few of the 11 stocks mentioned.

Among other most-read wealth management articles this week:

Meta's Muse trips up brokerage stocks. Concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence on brokerage firms have repeatedly driven selloffs this year. On Tuesday, the sector took another licking, this time because of worries about Facebook parent Meta's new personal AI assistant, Muse. The fear is that investors will use the tool to automatically move idle cash out of low-paying, but highly profitable, sweep accounts, which could put a dent in profits at Schwab, LPL Financial, and other brokerage firms.

Large Ponzi scheme lands former advisor in prison. A former financial advisor has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for orchestrating a $36 million Ponzi scheme that ensnared dozens of victims, who reportedly included Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

Siddharth Jawahar pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud in January. From 2016 through 2023, Jawahar solicited more than $35 million from his victims and invested only about $10 million of that money, nearly all of it in Philip Morris Pakistan, according to prosecutors.

Democratic Socialism and financial planning. This year, wins by some Democratic Socialist candidates has investors wondering whether some basic tenets of financial planning are about to change. Columnist and financial advisor Jonathan I. Shenkman says he believes that every political and economic cycle creates planning opportunities and shares five moves to consider, including estate planning and real estate investing strategies.

AI risks when onboarding new clients. In an era of rampant identity theft-when artificial intelligence can clone voices and create deepfaked videos-it is getting harder to know what is real. That is giving financial advisors something else to worry about: fake clients. One advisor onboarded a new client with no red flags only to have to cut ties when serious questions about the individual's identity emerged. There are two primary types of identity scams targeting advisors: account takeover and account opening.

Gen Z is investing early. Investors are getting their feet wet sooner than they have in the past, according to U.S. Bank's 2026 wealth report. Gen Z is starting to build wealth through investing at age 19 on average, according to the survey of 5,000 U.S. adults released this week. That is six years earlier than millennials, 10 years earlier than Gen X, and 13 years earlier than baby boomers.

Write to advisor.editors@barrons.com