Morningstar: Buy these 10 cheap stocks that will maintain higher-than-average dividends as a looming economic slowdown makes it even harder to find strong returns

• Heightened volatility and a looming recession make it difficult for investors to find returns.
• But dividend-paying stocks provide stable and consistent cash flow, even during downturns.
• Morningstar analysts shared 10 top undervalued stocks to buy for long-term cash flow.

After a tough final quarter of 2022 equities started this year strong, with renewed hopes that inflation had peaked, the Federal Reserve would pivot from its rate-hiking regime, and any recession that might occur would be muted thanks to robust wage growth and the savings American consumers had accumulated during the pandemic.

Three months later and on the heels of the greatest banking crisis the US has experienced since the 2007 recession, that optimism has largely given way to a cloud of trepidation and uncertainty hanging over Wall Street.