When the going gets tough on Wall Street, smart investors turn to dividend stocks. That's because dividend-paying companies are often consistently profitable. These are businesses that have shown Wall Street they can navigate choppy waters and come out stronger on the other side.

Income stocks also have history on their side. Based on a report released 10 years ago by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, a division of money-center bank JPMorgan Chase, publicly traded companies that initiated a dividend and increased their payout over time absolutely crushed non-paying stocks over the long run. Between 1972 and 2012, income stocks delivered an annualized return of 9.5%, compared to just a 1.6% annualized return for publicly traded companies without a dividend.

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Source Fool.com