With Christmas just around the corner, John Buckingham says undervalued dividend stocks are on his Christmas list.

Part of the reason, Buckingham says, involves seasonal market patterns. “There are never any guarantees, as was seen from 2007-09, but value-priced dividend payers have enjoyed particularly strong performance from Halloween until May Day,” he writes in his Forbes column. “In fact, the model portfolios in my newsletter have appreciated in 22 out of 24 such periods dating back to 1990, with an average gain of more than 21% for the six-month span.” The data of professors Eugene Fama and Kenneth French, which goes back to 1928, confirms that this stretch tends to be strong in general for the market, he adds.

Sign up for The Guru Investor’s FREE Weekly Newsletter

The presidential cycle also bodes well for stocks, Buckingham adds. “The data are limited, but historically speaking two-year periods in which you see a Democrat in the White House and the GOP holding forth in Congress also have been quite lucrative for the equity markets,” he says.

With corporate balance sheets strong, dividends rising, and fixed-income yields low, Buckingham says cheap dividend stocks should benefit. One he likes: General Electric.