Verizon CEO Hans VestbergWhen markets get choppy, dividends offer investors’ portfolios some cushioning in the form of income.Dividends provide a great opportunity to enhance investors’ total returns over a long-term horizon. Investors shouldn’t base their stock purchases on dividend yields alone, however: They ought to assess the strength of a company’s fundamentals and analyze the consistency of those payments first. Analysts have insight into those details.To that effect, here are five attractive dividend stocks, according to Wall Street’s top experts on TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their past performance.1.Verizon CommunicationsLet us first look at telecommunication giant $Verizon(VZ)$. The stock offers a dividend yield of 8