Play of the Day: Dividend-Paying Stocks

Published on:  20140522

Investor interest in dividend-paying stocks has increased substantially in recent years, in part because of the implicit stability of the companies in question, but primarily as a potential source of steady income as historically low bond yields have made income from investment-grade bonds difficult to come by. Focusing only on dividend-paying stocks limits an investor’s options to approximately 20% of the total US stock market. With hindsight, we also know that taking this approach 25 years ago would have eliminated some of the best-performing stocks in the period since, including Cisco, Starbucks and many others.