Dividends play an unsurprisingly prominent role when it comes to long-term wealth creation. Indeed, take a look at the best stocks of all time, and you'll see that most of them have long histories of returning cash to shareholders through regular dividend payments.
We know this thanks to research by a finance professor who made a startling discovery about the stock market: Over a 90-year span, 96% of all stocks collectively performed no better than risk-free one-month Treasury bills. After analyzing the lifetime returns of 25,967 common stocks, Hendrik Bessembinder, of Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business, determined that just 1,092 of those stocks -- or about 4% of the total -- generated all of the $34.8 trillion in wealth created for shareholders by the stock market between July 1926 and December 2016. Even more striking, a mere 50 stocks accounted for well over one-third (39.3%) of that amount.
Although price appreciation did much of the heavy lifting, dividends played a key role in wealth creation, as well.
Now, here's a look at the 10 best-performing dividend payers since 1926, culled from these top-50 stocks.
Disclaimer
Stocks are listed in reverse order of the dollar amount of lifetime wealth creation, which includes reinvested dividends. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent quarterly payout and dividing by the share price. Current stock data as of April 16. Analysts' ratings provided by Zacks. For more details on Bessembinder's study methodology and findings, download a copy of his paper, "Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?"
Some of the greatest dividend stocks on Earth are brand-name, time-tested companies that have been increasing their payouts for decades. Perfect examples include Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 0.67%) and Coca-Cola (KO 0.68%), which have each increased their base annual payouts for 61 consecutive years.
The Coca-Cola Company's ( KO ) dividend yield is 3.22%, which means that for every $100 invested in the company's stock, investors would receive $3.22 in dividends per year. The Coca-Cola Company's payout ratio is 74.22% which means that 74.22% of the company's earnings are paid out as dividends.
Over time, the cash flow generated by those dividend payments can supplement your Social Security and pension income. Perhaps, it can even provide all the money you need to maintain your preretirement lifestyle. It is possible to live off dividends if you do a little planning.
If you buy a stock one day before the ex-dividend, you will get the dividend. If you buy on the ex-dividend date or any day after, you won't get the dividend. Conversely, if you want to sell a stock and still get a dividend that has been declared, you need to hang onto it until the ex-dividend day.
The Coca-Cola Company's ( KO ) dividend yield is 3.22%, which means that for every $100 invested in the company's stock, investors would receive $3.22 in dividends per year. The Coca-Cola Company's payout ratio is 74.22% which means that 74.22% of the company's earnings are paid out as dividends.
Apple's annual dividend in 2021 was $0.88 ($0.22 paid quarterly). Based on Apple's stock price as of March 1, 2022 of around $163 per share, the dividend yield is approximately 0.50%.
A dividend is typically a cash payout for investors made quarterly but sometimes annually. Stocks and mutual funds that distribute dividends are generally on sound financial ground, but not always. Stocks that pay dividends typically provide stability to a portfolio but may not outperform high-quality growth stocks.
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