The past few months have been stressful ones for investors with lots of dividend stocks in their portfolios. The Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF, which tracks the performance of companies that consistently raise their payouts, is down about 8% from a peak it set this summer.

Dividend stocks can fall for lots of reasons, but the main one lately has little to do with the day-to-day operations of most businesses affected. For the first time since the global financial crisis kicked off over 15 years ago, investors can receive a risk-free yield above 5% from long-term Treasury notes.

Image source: Getty Images.

Continue reading

Source Fool.com