I am building a balanced portfolio FTSE dividend stocks to generate the passive income I need to enjoy a comfortable retirement. But what if I could buy just one? In that case, I would have to take a completely different approach.

A single-stock portfolio can offer some benefits. I can choose a super high-performing one, e.g. a wealth manager M&Gand rake in a whopping 9% annual yield. While the payouts to M&G shareholders seem unthreatening for now, it’s still a risky strategy. Plus, the share price has struggled to grow.

Alternatively, I could play it relatively unthreatening and buy the gearboxes through monopoly National Networkwhich currently gives a rate of return of 5.47%.

But the utility’s share price fell in May after announcing plans to raise £7bn to accelerate its transition to renewable energy. It has net debt of more than £40bn, and I don’t agree with that. So I wouldn’t buy National Grid on its own either.

I would buy Lloyds Banking Group

Unilever is another solid FTSE100 I would consider the blue-chip company for my comprehensive portfolio, but it does not generate enough income – the current rate of return is less than 3%.

Oil giant BP yields 5.39%, which is good. Its shares are also very low-cost, trading at six times earnings. But the energy sector is cyclical, oil exploration is risky, and we still don’t know how BP will negotiate the transition to net zero emissions.

I would happily hold all four of these in a portfolio of dividend and growth stocks, but I wouldn’t choose them as my only choice. If I had to choose just one stock for life, it would be Lloyds Banking Group (LSE:LLOY).

I know, I know, it’s kind of uninteresting. But it has to be uninteresting in some way. My nerves would be in tatters if I bought one stock and it was everywhere in the store.

This does not mean, however, that Lloyds will avoid the volatility and upheaval that comes with investing in shares.

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As we saw in the financial crisis, things can still go very wrong. Although I’d ​​like to think we’ve learned our lesson. We’ve certainly learned that massive banks are too massive to fail, and need to be bailed out if need be.

I chose Lloyds over other FTSE 100 banks because it sticks to the basics of personal banking and miniature business, which reduces its risk profile. It is still exposed to the ups and downs of the UK economy, which has been very uneven recently due to Covid, the cost of living crisis and everything else. But when investing in shares, you can’t avoid risk all together.

The Lloyds share price looks like good value trading at 7.4 times earnings, about half the FTSE 100 average of around 15 times. This is despite the stock rising an impressive 36.3% year-on-year. As a result, the share yield in recent years has fallen to just 4.8%.

However, the board intends to boost the dividend year by year, and the projected rate of return of 5.6% is more impressive. What’s more, this amount is covered twice by profits, which is quite comfortable.

As I said, investing in just one stock would be madness. But if someone held a gun to my head, my only choice for passive income would be Lloyds.