2 Dividend Aristocrats to Buy Hand Over Fist and 1 to Avoid Like the Plague

Although there are a lot of successful investing strategies on Wall Street, few have more consistently delivered for investors over the long-term than buying dividend stocks.

Back in 2013, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, a division of money-center bank JPMorgan Chase, released a report comparing the performance of dividend-paying stocks to non-dividend payers over a 40-year period (1972-2012). The result? Dividend stocks crushed the non-payers with an average annual return of 9.5% versus 1.6% for the non-payers.

But even among income stocks, no two are alike. There's a special breed of more than five dozen income stocks known as "Dividend Aristocrats" that are revered for their willingness to return capital to shareholders. A Dividend Aristocrat is an S&P 500 company that's increased its base annual payout for at least 25 consecutive years.

Continue reading

Source Fool.com