Selecting investments that outperform can be a complicated process, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as many folks in the finance industry make it seem. Elementary-school arithmetic is enough to see how buying dividend payers is an easy way to build a successful stock portfolio.

During the 50 years between 1973 and 2022, dividend-paying stocks in the benchmark S 500 index delivered a 9.18% average annual return. Stocks that didn't pay dividends produced an average annual return of just 3.95% over the same time frame, according to Hartford Funds and Ned Davis Research.

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Source Fool.com