http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...s-is-the-last-dividend-strategy-youll-ev.aspx

Not a regular reader of this website but someone shared it with me and frankly the list doesn't look half bad. It appears many of the picks recommended are members of the Dividend Aristocrats index therefore the dividend policies seem reasonably safe. If I were building a portfolio I would use a similar list and try to weight the various sectors to match the S&P500 by pulling stocks from the list to represent financials, energy, tech etc.

For example, current S&P weightings are approximately as follows:

Consumer Discretionary ~11%
Consumer Staples ~11%
Energy ~11%
Financials ~14%
Health care ~12%
Industrials ~10%
Info Tech ~20%
Materials ~3%
Telecom ~3%
Utilities ~4%

One could use the following list and have some mix of CVX, TOT, & COP represent the ~11% of the portfolio that would make up energy. For ~14% financials you could use AFL, WFC & BLK for financials; MO, PMI, & TAP for ~11% consumer staples, etc. If you felt more strongly about certain sectors over others you could overweight or underweight them to match your outlook. For example, if you think Obamacare is bad for healthcare you may want to limit your exposure to health care to only 10% of your portfolio instead of 12% and so forth for each sector on the list. This is a very common way of putting together a portfolio - overweighting and underweigting sectors using the S&P as a benchmark - and probably how most of your money managers (e.g. not your 'adviser' who is putting you in mutual funds based on Morningstar scores) are running your money.