It's been an upbeat, ugly, and just plain weird year for stocks. That might work out well for dividend hunters.

After three straight calendar years of plus-size returns, the S&P 500 index has already made 15% so far in 2026. But the median return, or middle of the pack among index members, is just 2%, and more than a quarter of index members have tumbled by double-digit percentages. By now you might have heard why. The index is being pulled higher by tech and artificial-intelligence heavyweights, and not much else. Nvidia is up 26% year to date, and Apple, 24%.

Memory maker Micron Technology and processor insurgent Advanced Micro Devices are trillion-dollar companies now, ranked tenth and 13th in the index by size, respectively. This year, they're up 276% and 196%. Seven other tech companies rank among the index's top 50, and have triple-digit gains this year, too.

Companies that have gotten pounded, on the other hand, include household names in food, drugs, retail, and utilities. That's where the dividend opportunity comes in. The S&P 500's yield is pathetic, at about 1%. But there are plenty of new members in its high-yielders club. I recently counted 117 index members yielding more than 3%, up from 80 five years ago.

Take Home Depot, for example. It yields 3.3%, which is a point above its average of the past 15 years. The stock hasn't paid this much since the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, before investors realized that lockdowns meant more remodelings, from under-the-stairs Zoom pods to extreme sourdough stations. That stock selloff proved short-lived. This one, not so much. Home Depot shares are down 21% over the past year, with declines accelerating since summer.

There are three basic problems for home-improvement retailers. First, we splashed out so much on remodelings during Covid that the stuff we were thinking about doing is already done. Second, interest rates are up, which is a problem for anyone looking to tap a home equity line of credit for a big kitchen or bathroom job. And third, high mortgage rates have frozen home sales. That means fewer new homeowners ripping up and replacing stuff they don't like.

Will this pass? And is the payment safe? Companies that achieved high yielder status through sudden share price declines rather than gradual payment increases pretty much all face significant problems. In the case of Home Depot, housing will eventually thaw, and the fix-it cycle will come back around, but it could take years. Dividends can provide good company during long waits for share price rebounds, but only if companies don't cut them.

To judge payment safety, make sure that a company's dividend yield is safely lower than its free cash yield, while checking that free cash flow doesn't look unsustainably high. Home Depot looks capable of generating a 5% to 6% free cash yield in coming years, which makes its payment look secure. Also make sure that the company doesn't face massive funding needs soon. And the dividend yield itself shouldn't be high enough to look like a warning sign.

Let's run through a few more sudden high yielders.

Nike shares have lost money for more than a decade. The stock's 4.8% dividend yield is about what a two-year Treasury pays. I know; this one is regarded by many as a "go woke, go broke" casualty. But I see two even bigger problems. China, a key Nike market, was once merely a cheap contract manufacturer of American sneaker designs, but now makes technically advanced sneakers of its own, complete with top athlete endorsements. Speaking of which, I don't see any Michael Jordan -- level pitch people in basketball today. LeBron James is middle-aged with an Amish beard. Nikola Jokic has a dad bod. And Victor Wembanyama looks like a car lot tube man flailing in the breeze. The yield looks tempting, but investors should wait for sales to stabilize before buying. That could take another year.

Pfizer, yielding 6.1%, has a post-Covid vaccine hangover and a looming patent expiration for the blood thinner Eliquis, and has sat out of the boom in obesity drugs. What's to like? The bar is low, with a price/earnings ratio in single digits. Costs are falling. And a massive buyout of Seagen three years ago makes Pfizer a key player in what are called antibody drug conjugates, which act like guided missiles for cancer cells. Just don't expect earnings to return to growth until closer to the end of the decade.

I explained here a couple of months ago why Coca-Cola is clobbering PepsiCo. The flip side of that is that Pepsi is barely half as expensive as Coke relative to earnings, and the dividend yield is twice as large at 4.8%. There's also a pretty clear turnaround playbook, if activists can persuade management to follow it: become more like Coke. Spin off the snacks. Sell the distribution. Become asset-light. Sharpen soda marketing, especially for the fast-growing zero category. The good news is that earnings can grow modestly even without these things.

Others to consider: Kimberly-Clark, yielding 5.3%, has been hurt by consumers trading down to store brands. Dividend coverage is tight, but management is cutting costs. McCormick, 4.2%, has seen similar trends and has better dividend coverage. NextEra Energy, yielding 3.2%, has ramped up its payments and seen its stock price recently fall in sympathy with bonds. Rising power demand bodes well for growth. Stanley Black & Decker, yielding 3.8%, has suffered a home-improvement bullwhip effect like that at Home Depot. And McDonald's has had to return to value promotions, but it has also returned to a more generous but still sturdy yield, at 3.3%.